October 29, 2013

White Dog and the rest of the Army sat around me as I filled out the adoption application. Steve went about taking the photos requested of the house, the yard, where the pups ate, where they slept and the dog door.
We answered all of the questions about our lives and our family and what we would do in certain situations and pressed the "Send" button.

"No problem," YoYoMa said, "they will LOVE us and Tiny White Dog will be reporting for duty in no time." He was right about the "in no time" part. It took less than 15 minutes to get the rejection email. "We do not adopt our dogs into households with other dogs who are not spayed or neutered." WHAT!!!! was the universal reaction from the WDA.

In filling out the form, we had answered truthfully, that Puff was an unfixed female of 15years. In the comments section we very carefully and completely explained that Puff was a survivor of Heart Worm + Stage 3 and had suffered severe pulmonary damage, bronchial scarring, and a collapsing trachea as a result. We explained that our vet given her medical condition and age had strongly advised against the surgery.

Tears were flowing now as I stroked Puff's head and tried to be at peace that apparently TWD was not meant to be part of the WDA. "You are a GREAT momma, momma," White Dog said, "You and dad made the right choice for Puff." "i know Baby Girl, but rules are rules, I guess."

My computer chirped telling me I had a new message, not unusual since I get lots of them. I took a deep breath and clicked as I was still cuddling WD. "Look!" she pointed. It was a second email from the rescue. In it Lori, the foster mom, apologized and explained that she had not read the comments before sending the rejection. If, she wrote, we still wanted to continue, our explanation was a valid reason to ignore the spaying rule.

Did we want to continue? Heck, yes! Tails wagged and Taiko ran out to tell Steve that we needed to upload photos pronto! By the end of the day, we received this response: "Bella would love to be a part of your pack!!"

This is her adoption photo, our first glimpse of Bella, now Bella E. Premuroso (beautiful and caring, in Italian)...the White Dog Army's newest recruit, Tiny White Dog. We are all driving to pick her up and bring her home on Friday and in the meantime WD has ordered the Army to make ready and get things in tip-top order. Oso, our Little Man is TWD's stand-in as the Army makes sure all is properly adjusted for a little one's comfort. The Big Boys, YoYoMa and Taiko have volunteered to chew all the treats down to a more petite size for our soon-to-be new girl. And Puff is very excited that she will have an ally who shares her earlier life experiences. "I hope she likes us," White Dog whispered as the others hurried off to assigned tasks.

"Me, too, Sweetheart. Me, too."