Happy Dawg

Rick and I fell in love today. Can you blame us? She's gorgeous. And sweet. And doesn't bark. And loves children and cats.

Here's what happened. I asked Rick if he wanted to go to the grocery store with me so I could get the ingredients for a venison pot pie and some venison breakfast biscuits. Since he had spent Friday night and all day yesterday hunting, he turned off the Dolphins game and came with me.

Boy, did I learn my lesson. (Just kidding...he can go to the store with me any time.)

We were cutting through the PetSmart parking lot, and saw that it was adoption day (actually, every Sunday is adoption day). Rick has been wanting a hunting dawg so he can find his deer on those rare occasions that he can't track them. We'd been looking at Bassettdoodles (because Rick has horrible dog allergies) with the thought of getting one next summer. He innocently said "let's just see if they have one." Niether of thought they would because the breed is not all that common. And sure enough, they didn't. But they had Happy, a bassett/beage mix, and she immiately stole both our hearts.

Rick has never spent time with a beagle, so he wasn't really sure whether he was allergic. So he played with her, then rubbed his eyes and we went to the grocery store to wait and see if his face would swell up. Twenty minutes later, his face was fine and we were filling out the paper work.

Happy Dawg adapted to her new home in about ten minutes, and now is acting like she's lived here forever. As expected, the two cats aren't thrilled. Oscar has been hiding in a closet all afternoon, but she did venture down to eat so she'll be fine. Sid is much braver, although still not sure about the dog. Happy likes the cats and would like to be friends. I think they'll all be fine with each other within the week.

Rick's going to take Happy Dawg hunting on Saturday. She is definitely a scent dog, but at least today she thought all scents were good ones. She'll need some training on that.

Thanks to the Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation for their work. The volunteers were great and there were so many wonderful animals, and if weren't for Rick's allergies, we may have brought home more than one!

The pot pie was yummy too, altough the recipe needs a little tweaking before I'll call it ready for public consumption. I'm making the biscuits tomorrow.