"Why did we decide to get a Golden Retriever puppy?" you ask. Well, maybe you didn't ask, but that question came up a few times during first couple of weeks after she came home. Now the question seems like ancient history, because she is turning into such a sweet dog -- oops, I can't stay in that fantasy forever, because she just stole my shoe!
Anyway, it happened like this. Last March our daughter Elizabeth emailed us about some GR mixes that were part of a large group of dogs rescued from a notorious puppy mill in eastern Oregon. A dozen or so of these dogs were taken in by Golden Bond Rescue and sheltered at Oak Lodge Barks & Recreation, a local doggy daycare center. Elizabeth said they were looking for volunteers to help socialize the dogs and thought we might be interested.
We signed up for a few hours each week, and one day when we were there the owner brought in a 6-month-old GR rescue pup named Oliver, who was as cute as a button and, we thought, would be a perfect match for us. He had just had surgery to remedy a birth defect on his face, and seemed to be healing up nicely. So we began the application process that would lead to adoption, and we let ourselves get excited about bringing the little guy home -- which was unfortunate, because by the time the process was complete Oliver had already been adopted. Or was it fortunate? Read on.
We were very disappointed, of course, and our disappointment began to manifest in the form of a serious puppy search, which culminated in Piper, who is now just over five months old and has just shed the last of her sharp little baby teeth. She spends an afternoon each week at the same doggy daycare center, where she is very much the social butterfly, a process which, thankfully, exhausts her completely! Going there triggered memories of Oliver, and we asked the owner about him. We were told that he was thriving at this point, but that after his adoption there had been more complications which required multiple surgeries, resulting in bills for the new owners and the rescue organization amounting to several thousands of dollars.
We can't help but wonder what that would have meant for us, had we been responsible, and are relieved not to have been put in that position. Although we really liked Ollie, we certainly are grateful for Piper! We have had enough synchronicity in our lives to understand that while some things happen by chance, the really important events seem to be guided by a greater intelligence, which connects people and animals in really deep and interesting ways that clearly seem more than happenstance. Such seems to be the case yet again with Piper, and certainly with her little cat "frenemy" Pywacket. They serve as a reminder that if these pet connections are to be taken seriously, so much more ought to be the human connections in our lives, however peripheral some of them might appear to be.
0 comments:
Post a Comment