A Gold Dog's Plight

This is part two of a three part story. Part 1 can be found here.... Love at First Sight

Our vacations have always been enjoyed in the 48 continental states. If we wanted to go somewhere, we would drive. Because I hate flying and we like to take all of our dogs with us.  We would load up an RV or van, dogs and all and drive. On this vacation we were in Florida. It's a 1000 mile drive for us. We drive it in one day. The average time is 18.5 hours. Two drivers four stops for rest, food and gas. If you traveled with three or four dogs you would drive it in one day too. It's just easier.

So on the way home we talked more about Goldie. Did we want to go visit Best Friends to see if she is there? We don't really have to go home right now. We could take more time off and turn left as we head out of Florida and keep going until we reach Kanab Utah and Best Friends Animal Society.
( for all you rubber stampers out there.....Kanab Utah was also the satellite home of StampinUp. They made the stamps there....... yes I would want to visit if we went to Kanab )
But after driving six hours and realizing a cross-country trip with three dogs and no plan was probably not a good idea, we stayed the course and drove home to Maryland.

We enjoyed the holidays at home and drove back to Florida in January to ride out the winter. Occasionally we would talk about Goldie and wonder what had happened to her. We also visited the shelters and PetFinders pretty regularly because it was obvious that we did have room for another dog in our life. As long as it was the right dog. We know it is not always easy introducing a new dog to a house full of dogs and every time a new dog is adopted, the dynamics of the pack changes. But we also knew that we were crazy and up for the challenge. Again.

  BestFriends had changed their website and they had an awesome adoption page in place. Just for grins, and to see if she was there, I searched for Goldie.
Nothing.
She wasn't on the website.
There was no information about her at all.  I couldn't even find a story about her.
But....
there was another dog.

Hobo Mississippi .   I wish I had a photo to share with you.

What a cool name. And what a gorgeous dog !

"Hey Lifeguard, (aka... DH )  Look at this one. Hobo Mississippi." 
"He's handsome, find out about him." was his reply.
So I contacted Best Friends about Hobo Mississippi.

A leftover Katrina rescue.    hmmmm..... ok

Not good with other dogs...... oh boy.

Bites.....ugh......

Un-adoptable.........ugh again.   Strike three.
 
At least he will have a home forever at Best Friends. That's not too shabby.

While I had the girl (do not remember her name) on the phone
I asked  "Do you remember Goldie? The dog on the cov..."
The girl interrupted  "Yes Yes Yes .....we had Goldie here. She was so pretty.  But she had issues."
"You had Goldie?" "Does this mean she is not there now?" 
"Yes, Goldie was re-united with her family. " she told me.  "She was...blah blah blah...and They were blah blah blah"  "blah  blah  blah   blah   blah "

I didn't hear the rest of what she said. My heart was breaking even though I knew this was exactly what should have happened. I thanked her for her time and hung up the phone.   I cried.

 I was happy for Goldie, she had found her home, but  I was very very sad too.   

So again, I decided to be happy with the three dogs that I had and stop looking for a while. Ginger  Dutch and Shadie were great dogs and everyone loved them. It would probably upset the pack anyway if I brought another dog into the house. All that work with training and re organizing the pack. Too much work. It's better this way. Goldie is happy with her family. This is good.

yeah ,   that's what I kept telling myself.............


to be continued....just one more time...