Lightening Our Hearts

Meet Oscar.  He is our newest member of the family.  I'm not really a dog person, though I do like dogs.  Growing up, we almost always had a dog - usually very big dogs, in fact.  We lived on a gentleman's farm and the dogs could roam all over the property without needing to be walked or cleaned up after.  My dad was the one who took care of them for the most part, so dog ownership was pretty easy from my perspective.

Getting married meant I adopted an Akita - my husband's love of the furry kind.  Sweet dog who was quite protective, but sadly had to be put down due to hip displaysia.  As our children grew, we wanted them to know what it was like to have a dog, so adopted a variety of shelter dogs: first, a dog with a broken leg who, when he had his medical cone off, bit my 4-year old.  The second was a little puppy (read - tons of work) which we called Zoe, who after about 8 months had to go back to the shelter after she chewed through every piece of wooden furniture and learned to jump the fence.  After Zoe came Tieyo - a stray hound mix from Virginia who we loved for a year.  He also loved to eat our home, and after many hours of training and many dollars of personal assistance, we had to return him to the shelter - he really needed a farm to run around on.

So several years have gone by, and now we wanted a dog for the holidays.  But I insisted on a few points first:  It had to be free - no high-priced re-homing fees for us.  It had to be small - no 5 x 60 minute walks to get him tuckered out would work, sine I figured I'd be the one doing all the walking.  It had to be good with kids and cats - I refuse to stress the cats out with an annoying dog.  I looked and looked for the 'perfect' new pet.  Finally, I found Oscar - 3 years old, needing a new home, free and sweet as could be.

It's been almost 6 weeks since Oscar joined our family, and I must say that he has brought light and love to our hearts.  None of us in this household can look at him and not smile.  We have all become silly and energetic around him, since he loves to play and run around.  He has a great personality, and also loves to lay in our laps for a snooze.  This is the dog-ownership I was looking for all along and not getting.   And as it turns out, everyone in the family chips in to walk him - what a treat!