Annie

So as I said before, Annie went elsewhere when Rick had to adopt her out.  When we couldn't take her, she went to (I think) a friend of Rick's assistant's family.   It was never intended to be permanent, but she was there quite awhile.  A couple of years later or so, my secretary's dog ate some human medication and got very ill.  My secretary's little daughter was a little blind girl.   I told the story to Rick and his assistant, and the assistant was so moved by the story she phoned my secretary and offered Annie to her. 

It turned out that the sick dog pulled through, but my secretary had been planning on getting a second dog anyway, so she took Annie.  So now Annie was in home number 3, not counting the home she was born into.  Another couple of years went by, and my secretary was dealing with some issues in her life and realized that having two dogs was more than she could properly handle.   She searched and searched for a home for her, but couldn't find one.  Finally, our local Humane Society agreed to take her in to their no-kill shelter.

In October, 2007, Syd and I went to a fund raiser at the Humane Society.   We saw Annie there, and of course knew her.   Syd went kind of crazy, seeing Annie in the cage.   She even crawled in the cage with her and petted her.   After that, she browbeat and armtwisted everyone she could think of trying to find Annie a home.   Finally, one night I woke up in the middle of the night to find Syd up and pacing around.  I asked her what was the matter and she said, "I just couldn't sleep thinking of Annie up there in that cage."  I said, "For God's sake, let's just adopt her!"  Syd said that since we already had three dogs, she didn't want our dogs to "do without" because we had too many dogs.   I just laughed and asked if she could think of when our dogs ever went without anything.

We had a vacation planned for Thanksgiving that year (we spent Tgiving week on the beach in Oregon) but when we got back, I phoned the shelter and told them we'd take Annie.  But now, it seems that they'd discovered she had an injury, and Annie was scheduled for ACL surgery in a week.   So we took her home for that week, in mid-December, 2007.   She was then able to come back to our house, and was used to the house and our other dogs, after her surgery.   She had to recuperate for 3 months.  During that time she had to either be crated or on a leash.   She couldn't go outside unless someone was with her and she was on a leash.  Guess who was elected.   We had a wonderful three month long bonding period and we're now very good buddies.     Sadly, in March after we got her, Gracie passed away.

So that's our little family now.    Our longest resident pet is our crazy bird Ollie.  He's a blue crown conure, and talks up a storm.   He's very silly.   He's been with us since October, 1998 when he was about a year old.   Next is Ernie.  He came to live with us in 2001, and is an quite elderly 14.   Daisy is also 14, but came to live with us in 2002.   Annie, as I said is the newest addition.  If it was up to me, I'd have two or three more dogs, but Syd would probably evict me and keep the dogs.