Happy Monday, friends! I’m so excited to finally be sharing this bundle of joy here with y’all!
If you follow me on Instagram, then you’ve already met this little girl. We’ve been head over heels in love with her and fairly busy with her over the last three weeks. I still can’t believe that it’s already been so long that she’s been with us. I mentioned back when we got her that I’d share our adoption experience with her, so I will today for those of you that are interested!
If you know D and I personally at all, you know we’re definitely dog people! We both grew up with them, and we knew that we wanted to get a puppy at some point. We had originally planned on getting a little Beagle at some point, but we weren’t sure when since we lived in an apartment for nearly two years and didn’t know what was next until D signed his Navy contract. At that point we put our puppy plans on hold for the foreseeable future.
That was until the weekend before Valentine’s Day last month. We got out to do some shopping at saw a Pet Smart, and I jokingly mentioned seeing if they had any puppies to adopt. D was up for it, so we went. The first one didn’t have anything, and the second one only had a black puppy that was getting lots of love from some kids. We ended up calling it a day and coming home empty handed.
I thought we were going to be fine without getting a puppy for a few more months until a few hours later, D had found a 10 week old puppy Beagle, and we reached out for more information. We talked a bit with his mom and brother, who has worked at two pet resort style places, and learned that Beagle just wasn’t going to be the right breed for us, especially without a fenced backyard. So, again, I thought we were done for a while, but I have to admit I was a little bummed.
I did some research but couldn’t find a breed that would be great for us based on the time I needed to spend working and how much exercise most dogs need. I started looking for little puppies we could rescue with not a ton of luck. We knew we wanted one fairly young, and that was the set back on most of them. Then I found Zoey, and I fell in love! I reached out to the shelter who had rescued her with some questions while D was at work so I could have all the questions answered for when he got home. That was on the 10th.
On the 11th we had sent in our application, gave proof that we’re allowed to have pets, and scheduled a meet and greet with her foster family for Friday the 13th. I was overjoyed! We both were! I sent her photos to both my mom and mother-in-law, and we all fell in love. D was keeping his hopes in check as he wanted to not get too attached in case we weren’t the right fit. I couldn’t help myself though, and ended up asking what the steps would be to adopt her if we fell in love with her Friday night. The answer: we could keep her as long as we had a crate she could sleep in.
I learned that on Friday and D was working until 5, with our meet and greet at 6, and Pet Smart being around 20 minutes away with Friday evening traffic. I was a bundle of nerves all day. “What if we want her, but don’t have a crate?! Should I go on ahead and buy one?! How big would we need?! (Her profile listed that the shelter guessed she wouldn’t get much bigger than 25lbs as an adult, but we had also been considering getting a Lab, which definitely wouldn’t work with a small crate.) Will D want me to go get one?! Will he just want to wait until Saturday, and they can bring her back to us?!” Luckily he came home, told me to go get one, and I was able to run to the NEX (basically comparable to a small Wal-Mart) to get what we’d need for her.
Her foster family came not long after I got home, and we fell in love with her the second we met her. The family was so sweet, letting us know all about what she likes and what they were doing to train her the best they could. They were also so, so sweet to leave a toy, a blanket, leash, and half a bag of food and some treats for her with us. I felt so sad to take her away from a family that so clearly loved her, but we knew little Z was the puppy for us.
So now it’s been three weeks and some days since then, and Zoey is doing pretty well with us! She had some accidents the first few days, but she’s caught on that she has to go outside for that! The night we got her we carried her to Pet Smart to get some extra toys, and I swear she’s been obsessed with all of them since. She absolutely loves being outside, either playing in the yard, going on walks, or running around at the dog park (that we noticed right down the road from our back yard the same week we found her online). She has such a sweet connection with D – she’ll go to his side of the bed to try to find him and gets super excited when he gets home from work.
Although we don’t know for certain what her breed is or how big she’ll get, we are so happy that we rescued her.