It has taken me a year and a half to grieve over the loss of our Snoop! Snoopy had a personality plus, didn't really like very many people but he was loyal beyond the call of duty, he adored David and myself, so it was hard making the decision to add the right kind of pouch to our brood!
Amber was so desperate for a dog and I had already made her wait and prove that she could look after a pet with her fish, which on most days she remembered to feed lol! We decided the life of a puppy was not our cup of tea, been there done that, to much pain with chewing and weeing everywhere! So adopting a young dog seemed like the right thing for our family!
This process did not come pain free I have to tell you! We had our heart set on a little Maltese cross Terrier named Reece that we found online with Pet Rescue(they give animals a second chance through foster care which is a wonderful way to find a new family member) and my daughter Amber was beside herself when we finally got to meet her!
So we drove out to meet Reece and fell in love with her! We were informed that another family was booked in to meet her the next day and we would have to wait to find out which family would take her home! This is where the whole thing went sour for us! We tried so hard not to get Amber's hopes up and mine for that matter, so when we found out she went to the other family, there were tears and sadness!
It made me re-evaluate the whole process, and if this was the right process for our family to find a pet! I wrote a letter to Pet Rescue telling them that we felt this process was to sad for us to continue with as I didn't think I could handle fixing up my daughters broken heart every time we missed out on what we thought was the perfect dog for our family!
I received a lovely email from Simone saying how terribly sorry she was and how hard it is sometimes to make such decisions!
I left it at that for a couple of days, but when I have my mind set on something I just can't let it go sometimes! This is where my focus kicked in(some call this obsessive compulsive behaviour, I am sure my husband calls this boarder line crazy)! I was on a mission to find the perfect dog for our family! It took me exactly one week and road trips from one side of the city to the other meeting many, many dogs lol, and I was starting to think maybe I should check myself into the insane asylum!
Some of our meetings with some of the pooches and their carers where not exactly the things that dreams are made of! We had an experience with one foster carer that was just boarder line rude and I think we nearly drove to the other side of Australia to meet this dog, got lost had no service on our phone it was getting dark and we were feeling flat when she basically sent us away without meeting the dog(by the way this meeting was organized by Pet Rescue only an hour before, so we didn't drop in unannounced, it was not their fault though!)!
This is when I nearly gave up! Thankfully I didn't and we booked ourselves in to meet just three more dogs and if I didn't meet a lovely little furry creature then I was going to give things a break for my own and my family's sanity!
Well the next three animals and families we met that were fostering the dogs were divine, beautiful families and gorgeous dogs! We knew we had to make a decision fast as I didn't want to miss out again! The last dog we met was Wilbur and we travelled down to the Gold Coast to meet him approximately an hours drive from home! WE all fell in love with Mr. Wilbur, knowing that another family was about to meet him, I texted(thank goodness for technology) Pet Rescue saying we loved both Wilbur and Issy from the day before and we would love either dogs to be part of our family and then we went down the beach(no point wasting a trip to the Gold Coast) and hoped and prayed that we might get a phone call before we returned home!
Thankfully we didn't have to wait to long before we received the exciting phone call to say we now had a new family member and we could go pick him up now and bring him home with us today, to save us another trip down!
I am so thankful that I continued on because we got our fairytale ending! His carer Soni is the most gorgeous lady, she has been in touch over the last two weeks and was and still is amazing with any advice or just kind words! So after a torturous start I would have to say it has certainly been worth every painful and glorious second! There are so many animals out there looking for a home, that just need to be loved and given a second chance! I am so glad we stuck with it and didn't give up!
Now after all my babble, let me introduce our new little family member! His name is Wilbur and he is what you call a bitsa, a bit of this and a bit of that, he is not a purebred and he was classified as a Shih Tzu x Terrier! We all think he looks a little like Benji! He is very furry, very scruffy, very sweet, well behaved and toilet trained and just so darn cute! The vet thinks he is around 4 years old and he just loves anything that moves, he will play with cats, dogs big and small and loves the kids they could do absolutely anything to him without complaint!
We have had one slight little problem with him, as he was a flood victim with the Queensland floods(very sad to think that some family lost there poor family pet) he is still getting used to his name! So unfortunately we have had a handful of incidents where Wilbur has escaped and run off down the road throwing caution to our pleas for him to stop! We have a very busy road a street away from our place and he came awfully close to being run over and just lets say I ran faster than I have run since I was young and thankfully I stopped him just in time! To say I am traumatised would be an understatement, and lets just say he has lost all front door privileges without a lead for a little while until we can confidently call his name and know that he will come back! I am way to terrified we will lose him again!
Anyway we love our little furbaby to bits and are so blessed that he is now part of our very own forever family!
We would certainly recommend giving a foster dog or animal a second chance it is such a wonderful and rewarding way of finding a pet and you are doing something kind for the already over populated pet population in this world!
Welcome to the family Wilbur, you gorgeous fluff muffin, we are so happy you have joined us!
1 comment:
OH Wilbur. you are the cutest dog! love Maisie
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