Empty crate...

Well, Alan the dog man talked to me yesterday and told me that he thinks that Mateo the dog would be nippy with children and that our family wasn't a good fit. :( I'm disappointed. Kimberly cried when we told her that we weren't getting Mateo (whom we were going to name Elvis) but she got over it really quickly. Jeff told her that we were going to go on a dog hunt tomorrow and we would see if there were any other doggies that would be a good fit for our family. Honestly, I dwelled on it more than the kids did. I just think that Alan the dog man tagged us all wrong and that Mateo would be an excellent fit, but what can I do? Jeff offered to go and beat him up for me, but I said that wasn't necessary. I love my meat-head husband! He sure knows how to make a girl feel special. :)

Since we didn't have a dog to sleep in the cage last night, the kids decided to give it a try:



Today I got the kids up and ready to head out on our dog hunt. They were really excited...Kennen was dressed for the occasion. Doesn't he look like a very large child for not being able to talk?

I was really excited too! (did I mention that our new frequent flier miles camera finally arrived? Fuji Finepix s700 and it rocks!)

First we looked at the puppies and I felt like hyperventilating at the thought of training them. I shuffled the kids out of there quickly.

Then we went into the big dog room and it was LOUD! We walked through and tried to just focus on the smallish dogs. I saw one sweet little gray guy that was just terrified. He was shaking and just looked to sad. It made me sad but not as sad as the prospect of my children getting bitten by a skittish dog. I moved on. Kimberly saw one dog and she squealed with delight! It was a lab/beagle mix and had such cute markings on its face. In the cage next to it was a medium sized curly haired doggy that could barely see because her hair was so long! Neither of these dogs were barking at us or trying to crash through the cage, so I selected to see each of them in the private room with the kids to see what their personalities were like. The first dog was a 8 month old that I like to call 'Blur'. That's because she moved really fast and reminded me of my old crazy sweet hyper dog April that I never seemed to train. Kimberly said that this was definitely the dog she wanted but I decided to bring 'Maxine' (her temporary alias) into the room too. She was calm. She walked on a leash. She gave lots of kisses. She didn't jump on the kids, or startle when they were screaming like crazy banshees. She is a leaner. She will not merely sit or stand like a regular dog, but she must be touching you at all times.

Like this:

Here's another cute shot. Can you imagine her with clean fur and a hair cut? She stunk really bad so as soon as she is healed up from being spayed, I'm taking her to the groomer.

Can't you just see her with clean fluffy hair, pink tongue hanging out of her mouth, running through the yard? Yeah...me too!