Dog story. . .

Only because Cara Mama is curious. About a year after we were married we adopted a dog.

Our local mall had an adopt-a-stray group in one of the stores and we'd go in to watch the dogs sometimes. It was enough to see the dogs and we normally were OK with keeping with our no pet pact we made when we got married. One day when we went in there were two dogs in the front pen. A brother and sister set. He was friendly and nice. She, Jada, was timid and shy. We imagined their story and moved on. Weeks went by and we returned and saw them there again. And a few more weeks we came back and now the brother had been adopted, leaving Jada alone in the world. We felt so sad for her we gave in and adopted her.

She was scared of us, but hated when we left her. She was couldn't stand for us to pet her, but also couldn't stand when she wasn't right by our side. We tried to get her used to being alone in our house, and tried to have her crate trained. . . she bent the bars on her crate with her teethe and snout and escaped every time. We assume that she was abused at some point from the way she acted. It wasn't long before we realized she was more than we could handle at the time.

So, tears streaming down our faces, we took her back to the adopt-a-stray shop. A few weeks later we asked about her and she had been adopted by a family with kids and two other dogs. Hopefully she's happy.

After that we decided on a strict no pet policy.

Fast forward 6 years and we have a baby. I find taking care of him so much less work than having a dog. As soon as our animal lover is old enough to take care of a pet on his own we'll review the policy, but it won't be soon.