Pamela Harris

Opal January 23, 2013

We were thinking about getting a dog. Probably an older one. A female. Most likely a pit bull, since there were so many in NYC's shelter system.

The pit bulls we knew were 50 pound lap dogs, all cuddly, sweet and smart. There were also a little shy and I loved how they'd sit against my legs and tap me lightly with their heads, as if to let me know they wanted a pat but didn't want to ask.

We went to an adoption event, but there were no older dogs. We tried to meet a few dogs from petfinders without much luck. We went to another adoption event at a Petco uptown and halfway through it walked to the bird section of the store to take a breather. Kids, shelter puppies, a cat - it was bouncing.

At the quiet end of the store a line of pet owners were getting prescriptions and waiting for grooming. We were pondering our next move when a beautiful grown pit bull came over for a pat. Her owner came with her, cradling a tiny puppy. We started talking about pit bulls and she mentioned she was a pit bull foster mom for the ASPCA. The puppy was a foster, not hers. He was a boy, seven weeks old.

We hadn't really talked about puppies and we found ourselves asking Does he have a sister? He did and if we wanted we could come back the next day and meet her. Still not sure we wanted a puppy we went back uptown the following day. The foster mom opened a heated carrier and took out a shaky, spotted little pooch. The mom handed her to Joe and the puppy looked up at him then fell asleep in his arms. We knew that was it. (That's the photo above.)

Pre-rescue she had a rough start and needed to gain weight then get spayed. It took a month and last week we finally got her from the ASPCA. I'm looking at her now and don't know how we ever lived without her.





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