I reached out to a dog rescue group. The woman who runs it said that their process was to come do a home visit (my guess is to make sure that I don’t already have a bunch of uncared for animals). After the home visit we are preapproved to adopt when a pup comes along that we like.
The woman at the rescue (that’s a lot to keep typing. I’ll call her…Candace) asked, “so, can you tell me a bit about you and your family?”
“Sure, my husband and I have three kids. We are active. I like to go running. As a family we like to camp, hike, go to parks, and we travel quite a bit because my husband is in the military.”
“Oh my goodness! I have a border collie mix coming in from a shelter. Those dogs aren’t for everyone because they are energetic but it sounds your family could keep up with one”
I was so excited. “That sounds so perfect Candace, do you happen to know how big he is?” (clearly I am having a hard time letting go of my list).
“Um….let me see…he’s 45lbs it says here.”
“Oh, bummer. I think that is just too big for us. You see, we are looking for a dog that is under 30lbs. We travel and drive a lot so I need a dog that’s not too little but also doesn’t take up too much room in the car.”
“Okay, that makes sense. How about I just send you some pics of the dogs we have coming in?” She suggested.
“Yes, that would be wonderful, I can’t wait to see them.”
So there I am scrolling through the pictures of the dogs. They are all adorable but I remain pretty neutral. Then, I just couldn’t resist, I sent Candace a message asking to see a picture of the border collie mix…just out of curiosity.
His face just hit me. He looked so smart and so happy and was just radiating good vibes. But…he weighs 45lbs. The 30lb max rule was one of the more logical qualities on my list…but that face, that energy…ugh. How do I get around this??
I’ll tell you how.
I immediately went downstairs and said to my husband, “you know…I’ve been thinking…I think it would be great if we bought a car topper. You know? Because then, when we do our road trips, we could just throw all of our stuff up on top of the roof. So much foot room and increased visibility!”
He looked at me suspiciously. “Bec…are you just trying to get a bigger dog?? Or are we talking 5 little dogs now?”
Dang. He’s good. I thought I had presented my case pretty casually. Guess not.
Did he think I was crazy? I mean…probably. Luckily though, we embrace each other’s crazy. Heck, we even encourage it. I truly believe that our purpose for finding one another in this universe was simply to double check each other’s parachute before jumping into our next crazy endeavor.
Suffice it to say, we now have a car topper and are going to be fostering this mystery border collie.
I can’t wait.
The Heralding Hound 