Haley Jade

What a difference a week can make! I woke up last Sat. to read condolences and messages on FB that an old colleague of mine had passed. It made me incredibly sad as it just reiterates how short life truly is. After that morning shocker, I proposed to Rodney that we finally go get a dog. We'd been talking about it for a while and waffling back and forth on whether to add a furbaby to our lives. On this day, it felt right.

My husband already had some babies saved online, so we looked together and decided on Haley. Although she was about 30 min from us, her bio sounded like a good match for us. We got to the shelter and were told that she'd been there for almost 2 years (which made it even more tempting to adopt her). She had a sweet demeanor and wasn't overly hyper like other pits we had visited before... so we made a quick decision to take her home. The shelter bathed her, gave her shots and micro-chipped her on the spot so we could take her. On the way home, we stopped at the pet store to buy a bed, food, toys, bones, etc.

Here are some photos we took that first day:

We began settling into a routine. She slept. A lot. Perhaps it's because she hadn't gotten restful sleep in a long time. We picked her up on a Sat. and then made an appointment with a vet for the following Tues. I took the day off so we could take her together... only when we got home, our condo company contacted us to say we had to get rid of her. Apparently, our bylaws have a requirement of 30 lbs. max and she was about 10 lbs over. Even though we own the actual condo, picked up after her and were sure she would blend with the other big dogs around our complex who were "grandfathered in" at a higher weight, we could not keep her.

After only 4 days, we were both attached to her, so it was a really hard decision. We hated the idea of taking her back to the shelter or even thinking that she may get euthanized. But we had to and we did. We didn't want to get any more attached than we already were or prolong the inevitable. That evening, we drove back out to the shelter to return her. The shelter people were pretty mean to us which didn't help matters.

A week ago, we got a furbaby and called her Haley Jade. She touched our hearts and provided insight into the kind of dog we'll want when we move to a place without restrictions.