Shiloh is here to stay!
The Rest of Me: Dog edition
So, yesterday was the end of our two week foster to adopt option, but this morning, Shiloh was still here, so it’s official: Mike and I have adopted a 4 month old puppy.
I think Shiloh sensed a shift yesterday, though, because last night at about the time we took her home two weeks ago, she got a case of the zoomies.
Like, a mean case of the zoomies.
A go-outside-and-sprint-with-her-until-her-wind-up-clock-wound-the-hell down case of the zoomies.
To be honest, I think she was celebrating.
I’m celebrating, too, in my way.
But—as is also my way—I’m worrying.
Worrying about how exhausting the next few months will be.
Worrying that my anxious steady state will somehow corrupt my sweetly-tempered girl who seems to be afraid of almost nothing, with the possible exceptions of the DPW’s riding lawnmower; the big, bad, burping bus; and *checks notes* dribbling basketballs.1
Worrying that she will forever sit down instead of walk and never become the sweet walking buddy I’m hoping she’ll grow into one day.
Worrying that because this cute domestic terrorist is ready to deploy a bio weapon without much warning, I’ll remain on potty patrol forever and never again finish the task I sat down to do, unless, of course, that task involves her.2
Worrying that I’ll do something to break her heart—long walks on a leash, perhaps?—and then she’ll break mine by avoiding me because of said long walks on a leash.
Mostly though, my heart is full.
Some of you may know that Mike and I adopted a dog named Luna in 2020 who turned out to be a disastrously bad fit for a condo with a family of just two quiet adults. Luna needed acres of land to gallop and oodles of kids to play with, and based on our feedback to the rescue taking her back to rehome her, that’s just what she got. I told myself that even though we didn’t adopt her as planned, we were attentive fosters who helped her find the family that did adopt her, but I still feel such shame about our adoption failure that we kept news of Shiloh fairly quiet. Where Luna got the full social media paparazzi treatment, we were comparatively silent about Shiloh while we were sniffing each other’s butts.3
Another reason for radio silence is that ending a year-long hunt for an adult dog by adopting a 15-week-old puppy has been a lovely but all-consuming and humbling experience. And I say that knowing full well that Shiloh’s fairly easy as puppies go! Bringing Shiloh home may have been the right move, but it certainly wasn’t the easy one.
I know how it must sound saying a puppy was the right move, but it truly does feel fated, which is maybe the happy ending at the end of the long and winding road talking. We started searching for an adult dog to adopt after my mom died last spring, but after a few heartbreaking near misses with the agency that approved us, we decided to expand our search a bit the way one does such things these days—by posting on a Facebook page for the dog park in our town for leads on rescue groups.
As luck would have it, Felicia, the co-founder of Gals Best Pal, invited me to give her rescue a chance, and I fell in love with a medium-sized adult dog name Shiloh (but not our Shiloh), though as is the way of these things, the dog that inspires you apply to adopt is rarely the dog you actually adopt because by the time you finish the vetting process, that pooch has already found her forever family, and that’s exactly what happened here—once we were vetted, another family had already committed to adopt Shiloh (but not our Shiloh). After a handful of near misses over the last year, I was deflated. Shiloh (but not our Shiloh) had sad soulful eyes and a beautiful name that meant tranquil—surely this little bundle of tranquility was meant to me mine? Alas, she was not, but Felicity asked me what I wanted—an adult medium-sized dog with a sweet temperament—and then she started sending me all kinds of sweet, mid-sized adult dogs that were scheduled for the next transport from the southern fosters Gals Best Pal partners with. While we had a couple of solid contenders, the transport was a ways away, and I really wanted to meet my dog before committing, so Felicity invited me and Mike to an adoption event on the 15th full of dogs currently available. None of the dogs listed really excited us, but we decided to go anyway, thinking maybe that by putting a face to my name for the volunteers at the rescue might somehow speed up the process. Also, spending an evening among dogs is rarely a mistake.
I didn’t have any plans to take a dog home that night, but before we left for the event I said a silent prayer to our late greyhound Bo. Bo was the gentlest sweetest old soul ever, and we still miss him. Maybe even more so after a year of looking but not finding the right dog and several conversations with my husband about how one in a million Bo was and that perhaps there wasn’t a dog out there who could actually measure up.
So I said a silent prayer to Bo to help us find a very good dog.
Is that silly?
Maybe a little.
Or maybe it’s just the most tender way I know how to set a clear intention that temperament was my top priority.
At the event, all the dogs we met in the first half of the night were sweet but not quite right until we stumbled upon a family fawning over this little tan puppy with a black muzzle called Noodle who was super quiet and so sweet she just wants to lean into everyone she meets. The family was ready to adopt—the mom even declared her interest to Felicia—but then the mother’s son pitched a fit because he wanted a pug, and the mother snapped at the boy—“We are never getting a pug so take a real look at this dog!”—and then the son burst into tears and the mother ignored him to try to push the adoption through, but Felicia told the mother no because she couldn’t place a dog in a family unless the family unanimously agreed on the dog. Meanwhile Noodle—who wasn’t Shiloh quite yet—was looking lost in the arguing, so I sat down on the floor. Suddenly Noodle was on my lap molding her little (for now) body to my legs where she stayed, sweetly greeting everyone who stopped to pet her, and then curling back into me as if she was saying: “Her, please. I pick her.”
I turned to Mike.
He reminded me gently this was a puppy, not an adult.
I reminded him that his dog was exactly what we’ve been looking for, and it would be bananas to pass on this sweetheart because she happens to have been born a year too late.
So Mike and I spent a few minutes psyching ourselves up for “The Summer (and fall and maybe even the winter) of Puppy Training, and then Noodle was up and kissing my face and I was melting and thinking this baby needed a better name and Mike was signing the contract which was filled out for Shiloh because that was the dog I’d initially applied for, and I took that as a sign that Shiloh was destined to be this puppy’s name because Shiloh means tranquil, remember, and holding her I felt peace.
Now if I can just hold onto that peace during the moments she sprays our house with bioweapons4 or stages a canine hippy sit-in on the sidewalk when we’re supposed to be walking….
Next week, I start my read through of Wonderbook, in case you’d like to get a copy to read along with me. Dipping into the book this week, I’m finding that the first chapter is packed with so much thoughtful content, I suspect the book might function as a bit of a Rorschach test—you gravitate to the material that speaks to where you are as a writer at the moment you read it. Stay tuned!
That last one is courtesy of a neighborhood boy with dribbling skills so bad that I’d look like a a Harlem Globetrotter if I dribbled beside him
Fear not! I’m getting up at stupid o’clock to write for a couple of hours before she’s woken up!
Metaphorically for me; literally for Shiloh.
She’s starting to get it, I think! Or perhaps we’re reading her better. Maybe it’s a little of both.
Oh, I love this post so very much. Congratulations to all three of you. And I'm ordering Wonderbook now!
Oh my goodness, those photos! How could you have done anything but bring her home with you, after that?!