Nerve Endings Firing Away

Say hello to the newest member of our household – Lucy. We got her yesterday from Impact Animal Foundation in College Station. She is a West Highland Terrier or Westie and you might recall her breed from the Cesar brand dog food covers. She is the cutest little thing in our home and absolutely adorable. As a typical Westie, she is highly excitable and loves to play.

Her background is a bit tragic. She was abandoned by her original owner on the highway (special place for you in hell, folks) where she was picked up and handed over to the animal shelter. Impact Animal Foundation put her up in a foster home and up for adoption. We spotted her last week on their website and instantly applied for adoption after our efforts at fostering pets had fallen through due to our apartment complex’s idiotic (and biased) pet policy. Fortunately for us (and Lucy), the process was a breeze as we downloaded the application, filled it out, and handed it over to the Impact folks yesterday at the local Petco. We had expected the process to take a while but her foster parents called us yesterday for a home visit which is a mandatory step in the adoption process. We thought they would simply bring her over to take a look at our place and see how she adopts but they ended up leaving her. Of course, Lucy made the transition for them much easier by jumping all over our apartment, hopping on our beds & sofa, and sniffing the hell out of every corner.

Excited but a wee bit nervous, it took us only a short time to get used to her presence in our home. I had a dog in India ever since I was seven but Ash hasn’t had much experience with pets but can you really resist such a cutie? We hadn’t even bought the initial pet supplies so off we went with Lucy to Petco where we picked up her crate, food & water bowl, collar & leash, dog food, doggie treats & chewable rawhide, and couple of toys. She is crate-trained and house-trained or at least her foster parents didn’t have any problems although she hasn’t pooped yet after gobbling down umpteen treats and her morning grub. In order to know her ‘schedule’, we took her out for several walks yesterday evening but apart from sniffing her new environs and barking at big dogs, there wasn’t any solid output. I even took her out early this morning but no such luck and ended up rushing back home for my ‘schedule’.

Pet care is so much different in the United States compared to India. There are umpteen things to take care of – embedded microchip, county tags & registration, vet visits, house training, crate training, obedience training, etc. It is almost like having a kid. Hope we turn out to be good parents. As you might expect, there will be regular updates on Lucy’s progress and transition to our household in the next few weeks so if you are not a dog person, you might want to take a hike :)