Black Friday

I think I found a job at the WCAC that is not for me.

I worked a four hour shift on the Friday after Thanksgiving as an adoption counselor. I had brought my camera along in case there was time for me to work on my paparazzi duties. No chance of that, though — one of the other volunteers said that there were about 50 people standing at the front door waiting for the doors to open at noon! There were lots and lots of new families made that day, but not to worry, there are more to be had.

My first stop was to see my favorite Chow Chow, Kelly. She is such a sweetie and everything she did reminded me of my dear Sugar. I was desperate to find her a family as every time I saw her I was one breath closer to bringing her home. Happily, Kelly was adopted. She found a nice family who also has a Rottie and a Dobie … and a couple of kids too.

It was interesting to see the different people looking for dogs and how they went about it. There was one mother there who was letting her little boy pick out his next dog. They were also trying to make sure that it wasn’t too chaotic of a pup as he had a little sister who could easily get bowled over. I’m not sure who he ended up with. I do know that he was visiting with a lot of different dogs looking for the right one. Then there was the couple with the two-year-old girl who was interested in this spastic puppy. I didn’t want to insult them, but that puppy really wasn’t going to work, as he was nearly pushing me over with his excitement. Near the end of the day there were two dads with about six kids between them looking at a sweet little black Lab puppy.  As they walked off with Delaney’s ID number in their hand, a woman and her boyfriend came up to look at the same dog. You can’t “hold” a dog while someone looks around, but I really didn’t want this couple to get the puppy. Not because I wanted the little girls to get her, but because the boyfriend seemed very surly about the whole thing and was only there because the girlfriend insisted they come to the WCAC. Luckily, the family got to the registration desk first.

I was wiped out when I got home that night. As Charlie and I ate dinner I told him about Kelly finding a family and I started getting weepy. It took a bit for me to figure out why I was upset. I guess you might call it “reverse buyer’s remorse” – were those people the right family for Kelly? Since they had other dogs, was she going to get all the attention she deserved? And they keep their big dogs outside, but Kelly’s too sweet — doesn’t she need to be an indoor dog? Would they understand her Chow Chow ways?

As the days have gone by it wears a little heavy on my heart that each of these pups deserves a GOOD home with lots of LOVE. And no more upheaval, like Cletus Joe, who left the WCAC when he was about 3 months old and is now back again at 7 months. I haven’t seen the paperwork, but I can tell by the photo I took that he wasn’t one of those chaotic pups.

UPDATE: Just got a note from Gabi – 74 animals got deposits for adoption and 27 went home on that very day. May they all be with their forever family.