By On March 23rd I started a two-week trial adoption of a dog from Fulton County Animal Shelter. At the end of the trial, if all goes well (meaning I don’t return him), he is mine. I still miss Mavis…but I also miss having a doggy companion. My sister and I have been following various shelters on Instagram and Facebook for awhile. I didn’t see a dog that I connected with. I even went to an Adoption Event in Alpharetta (North of me), but still no dog love connection. It was mostly big dogs. I did cry after that event, because even with 50 successful adoptions that day, there were so many dogs that remained unadopted.
The shelter, run by Lifeline, is a no-kill shelter, but if they get too far over capacity (which is constantly), they identify dogs for euthanasia. If they can’t get the numbers down (after pleading online), then they kill the dogs on the list. Which is just dreadful to think about.
I drove down to the shelter…which became an adventure in itself. Waze sent me to the old shelter, which is by the Fulton County jail. That was terrifying. Rather than return to the safety of the Northern suburbs, I plugged in the new shelter address. Waze provided new driving instructions. I can say now (and whispered to myself at the time), this drive was probably the scariest drive I’d ever taken.
At one point, I called and left a message with my sister because I wanted someone to know where I was in case I got car-jacked/killed. Let’s just a suburban dork like me driving a Mercedes convertible through a sketchy area of town is pretty stupid.
But I digress.
I had a list of dogs to look at. Sugar and Spice caught my eye, along with a few other dogs, including Axle, so I decided I would drive to the shelter and check things out. By the time I had arrived, one had been adopted already; one was in Foster; Sugar and Spice apparently was too spicy and wasn’t allowed visitors. My list was shrinking fast. A volunteer showed me around the shelter to various small/medium ‘chill’ dogs (dogs that don’t require a backyard and won’t destroy a beautifully appointed townhouse). While there are a LOT of dogs in the shelter, very few meet that criteria. The entire experience was overwhelmingly sad. So many unwanted pets (even some abandoned turtles)! There were lots of big dogs (Cane Corsos, German Shepherds, really big pit bulls, Rottweilers) that scared me (and I love dogs).
Axle was showing up on the kill list and I guess I snapped. He was less than 2 years old and looked sweet and innocent. We went out to a pen to get acquainted. He was 37 lbs of energy and was a little bit bonkers. I live in a townhouse with no backyard and I thought this would not be a good fit. Sadly I left the shelter. I felt he needed a yard and a family.
That night I talked to my sister and said (just like in ‘Risky Business’) “what the [bleep}”. I applied to adopt. And they accepted. So the very next day I found myself at Walmart buying a leash seatbelt hook and dog cookies (all I could think of). My brother in law graciously agreed to drive me down to the shelter. Before Atlanta traffic could kick in, we were already on our way back to the Northern burbs of Atlanta with Buddy (as in Buddy the Elf or Gilligan ‘Little Buddy’).
The first few nights I was in a state of shock (I imagine he was too) and really concerned that I had jumped in without thinking through all the repercussions. As Caesar said, “Alia iacta est.”. The die is cast. I made a decision so I’m moving forward.
The trial is almost up. I couldn’t bear to send him back to the shelter, so I guess we are going to figure this out. Wish us luck!
