So, one of my friends saw that I “liked” the photos that my former sister-in-law (now divorced) posted of a litter of puppies. My FSIL has a darling Border Collie female, whom she bred to a handsome BC, planning to keep one pup as a companion to the mama dog and sell the rest. My FSIL “tagged” me in the photos, because she remembered my Border Collie Rupert (who died in 2001) and thought maybe I’d be interested in one.
I’m not, because of my raging love affair with my mixed-breed, Otto, but my Facebook friend was riveted by one of the five pups in the photos. Why that one? I couldn’t keep them straight myself – they were a churning mix of black and white and I honestly couldn’t tell which was which from photo to photo.
My friend is not currently looking for a new dog – just open to one. She lost her heart dog to cancer last year and has another one fighting the damn disease now. A part of her would probably like the sparkle and fun and distraction of a puppy – but apparently, just the right puppy. She’s been lurking and spying on the regular flow of photos from my FSIL, and had her eyes on one pup in particular. And she finally got up the courage to ask if that one had been spoken for. She intimated that if it wasn’t, she’d be in the market.
I felt a bit like a marriage broker, but passed the question along to my FSIL . . . who responded that the puppy in question was indeed sold and going to her new home any day now.
And despite her slow and irrational fall into love with the pup, once she knew the puppy was spoken for, my friend quickly and rationally fell out of love with the idea of getting a pup any time soon. Snap. Just like that!
I had been thinking that my friend was just jonesing for a pup, any pup. But no; there was something about that one little face that riveted her.
It made me think back to when my husband finally agreed that we were ready for another dog, some years after Rupert passed away. I immediately pulled up the website of my local shelter, which had about 30 dogs available for adoption at that moment. I singled out two that I wanted to go meet: one scruffy terrier-mix, and a one lanky hound-mix. As those two disparate dogs showed, I didn’t have a specific breed or size or type in mind. I just liked the looks of those two guys. And when I met the scruffy adolescent, I knew I had to have him. That was Otto.
Have you ever fallen in love with a dog just from his or her photo? If so, share your story. We’d love to hear it.
