Meet Roxy

This is Roxy. She is a 5ish-month-old German Shepherd/ Border Collie mix. She hasn't grown into her ears and her paws yet. Which is pretty much adorable.

My husband is a huge "researcher." He loves doing shopping and researching online for everything we buy. So as soon as we found a house, he went into dog research. He's wanted a dog for a long time, but we've never been able to have one where we've lived.

A couple weeks ago, we went down to Portland area to see NAIA Cross Country Nationals. Our old cross country team (all the way from Illinois) had made it so of course, we had to go cheer them on.

Wearing our old ONU purple track jackets! 

Sitting at Starbucks, waiting for the race to start, James found a picture of Roxy online. So after the race, we went to this pet shelter to go meet her. We got to take her for a walk and found out that she loved running with us. Perfect. So we signed adoption paperwork and paid for her. It happened pretty dang fast, but James had been doing his research and we knew she was what we wanted.

Then we got a call the next day from the shelter. The guy that had been working was a fill-in and didn't do some things correctly. Apparently, we were supposed to fill out a full application for the dog. And when they adopted dogs out, they weren't supposed to be "first come, first serve." All applications were supposed to be considered before they decided who was the best owner for the dog. Yes, we already paid and signed the paperwork for her, but actually they (the dog shelter) never signed it (because the guy didn't know what he was doing) so the paperwork wasn't actually valid. Since we live two hours away, he said we could continue to "foster" her through Thanksgiving but we would have to bring her back on Saturday to figure everything out because at least one other woman was interested in adopting her.

Before we knew if her could keep her. Me trying not to fall totally in love with her yet.. (I still did)

I know. Ridiculous. In retrospect, I'm actually pretty sure we would have done well at small claims court if we wanted to push it that far. So all week and through Thanksgiving I was worried that we might have to give her back. We went ahead and filled out the application. I've owned two border collie mixes before, so we were able to put that down on pet history. And we have a backyard and we were able to circle that we are planning on exercising her "3+ miles per day." Because between the two of us, Roxy is going to go on a run each day once she is fully grown and her body can take it. So really, our application for her was stellar. I was still worried.

Then we got a call on Saturday.

Shelter guy: We received your application. We have the paperwork all ready for you to sign here, so we just gotta have you come back down so we can finalize everything.
James: So.. you picked us?
Shelter guy: Oh, yep. She's yours as soon as you come fill this out.

James got off the phone and told me. When did they decide she was ours?? Did they not realize how worried we were?? Actually, it was mostly me that was worried. James doesn't worry like I do, but that's another blog post in itself.

In conclusion, we now have a new member of our family. What about our cat, you ask? Well, she's actually still living with my in-laws until Christmas (I thought one day on the plane would be better than 4 days driving). So the day she comes home will be an interesting day.

James's new best friend.

I've never had a German Shepherd dog before, but I have heard they they can become "one man dogs." She definitely likes James more than me. I'm kind of jealous. But I do love running with her. She's not even that big yet, and I feel totally safe when she is with me. We are still teaching her to not totally pull the lease, but after about a half-mile or so, she falls in line beside us.

Basically, we love her. And we're really glad we got to keep her. :)

<3 Amy