How We Got Charlie

A few months ago my boyfriend Waylon had to leave for an all night band show. I was home alone and feeling kinda lonely. I was thinking to myself, "It would be great if I had a doggie here to keep me company." After that I couldn't stop thinking about getting a dog. Every time I went over to my parents house and played with their dogs I thought about getting a doggie. When my co-worker brought her uber cute chihuahua to work I thought about getting a doggie.

Suddenly at work I found myself haunting the pages of petfinder.com searching for a little doggie I could rescue. Finally after talking to mom and talking to Waylon I decided to start filling out applications for adopting a dog.

I thought it would be easy, just send in my application and go meet the dog and rescue it.

Man, was I wrong.

The first dog I wanted was already adopted but they didn't update it on the website and it took them almost a week to get back to me through email to tell me, not only that, but that I shouldn't have sent my application to the rescue but to the foster parent. Because, apparently, the foster parent has "first dibs" on whatever dog they're fostering and it's up to them to see if you're a good candidate or not.

Now, this wouldn't have bothered me except that they didn't notify people of this fact on petfinder.com (which hosts several thousands of rescues). It is up to the rescue to provide all the information a potential adoptee needs to know.

So after finding this out I assumed that ALL the rescues on petfinder.com were like this. I assumed correct.

After narrowing my list of doggies to one, I sent my application to one of the foster moms. She got back to me right away saying that my application looked good and was I interested in meeting Calvin next Sunday? I said yes. She said they would be at a Petsmart in north Scottsdale and to meet them there. If Calvin didn't work out for us other people could still look at him she said.

I waited all week to meet Calvin and was very excited. I didn't think I would be adopting him today, I simply thought I would be meeting him and then possibly have another meeting somewhere more private and then we would adopt him.

Waylon came with me, of course, it was important to me that we both met him. When we got to the Petsmart I realized that the rescue was hosting an adoption fair and several of the dogs that were available were there. I met up with the foster mom who held up Calvin. He didn't look like he was having a very good time at all. He was distracted, barking, yipping and growling at every dog who passed by him. He didn't want me or Waylon to hold him and kept trying to jump down. The foster mom was embarrassed saying, "Oh he never barks at home, I don't know what's gotten into him!"

I asked Waylon if he wanted to look around at the other dogs and see if anybody caught our eye. I chatted with the foster mom a bit, letting her get to know me. I assumed if any adoption was to go through a home visit would be included.

Suddenly I noticed a little white doggie sitting very calmly (and nervously) in his cage kind of looking around in awe at the circus around him.

I asked the foster mom, "Who is he? He looks cute..."

Waylon and I agreed that he was very cute. She took him out of the cage. I held him for several minutes. He didn't move away or seem to be aware of me holding him. Waylon held him. He didn't seem to mind Waylon. So we sat down with Waylon still holding him and Darwin began to look sleepy. We look at each other and decided without really saying anything that Darwin was a definite yes.

I called the foster mom over and said, "We like Darwin. How do we go about adopting him?"

She said, "Oh let me get his papers and we'll do it right now."

I was a little surprised, not expecting to adopt a dog today, but why not? Darwin was very shy but calm amid this chaos and was practically falling asleep in Waylon's arms. So, I signed the papers and handed over $150 which included his neutering, shots, and a microchip. After that we bade them goodbye and went shopping around Petsmart for his bed, some toys and nail clippers. I skipped the food aisle altogether because none of it was any good.

In the car he was very good, sleeping in his bed on Waylon's lap. We decided right there that he needed a name change. So we started calling out names, seeing which one we would react to. When I said, "Chaaarlie." He looked up.

And now he is Charlie Longdog Nevarez-Wood.

When we got home that night he didn't really know what to do. He seemed scared of Waylon when Waylon stood up. He kept following me around. And he was VERY hungry. I fed him some Evanger's Turkey Chunk which he snarfed and asked for more. I tried to take him for a walk but he didn't seem to know what a leash was or what to do. All he did was sit down and look around.

Around 10 pm Charlie and I were watching T.V. when the foster mom called me.

"We have a situation," she said. "Darwin was not supposed to be adopted today and his foster mom, who is the founder of this rescue, told her assistant to not let them adopt him out. She only wanted applications to be collected for him. The assistant failed to tell me this and now she's going to be fired! The founder, Deb, wants your phone number so she can talk to you and kind of interview you. Is that okay?"

I said it was fine. Almost ten minutes later Deb calls me and starts asking me questions. After assuring her that I'm a responsible pet owner and know more about animals than most 21 years olds do she said she was very sad to see Darwin leave and to keep in contact with her.

I honestly believe that if I had talked to Deb first about Charlie she would not have adopted him out to me, simply because she was too attached to him. He was living with 30 other dogs and I know that he was not happy. In a strange twist of fate I got Charlie simply by selecting another dog that was wrong.

Today Charlie has learned to love his leash. He loves all manner of squeaky toys and he loves me and Waylon and his favorite thing to do with us is lay on his back and go to sleep in between us while we're watching T.V.

Oh, and he loves Animal Planet as well :]