Two years ago today (January 25th), my Moose joined the family.
At the time, I was only going to foster him. But I decided to keep him. This is his story.
My Miko had passed away in September of 2003. I adopted Lally within days of losing Miko, but something was still missing in my heart. I started to think that maybe I needed a second dog to fill the void Miko left.
I looked for dogs like Miko on Petfinder – husky/german shepherd mixes. I found a lot of them. One picture, a dog in California named Floyd, really grabbed me. But in the end, I decided that there were a lot of dogs in the immediate area who needed me. Petfinder led me to Faithful Friends, a rescue out of Ticonderoga NY, barely an hour’s drive from my place in Rutland, VT. Faithful Friends was in need of foster homes, and I thought that fostering would be a perfect way to see if I really was ready for a second dog.
Faithful Friends sent me a list of five dogs they were planning to fetch from a shelter further west in upstate New York – the shelter had gone several months without heat, and it was the middle of winter! Based on the descriptions, I picked out a dog named Coyote who seemed like he’d be an easy fit – housetrained, medium sized, and looking for love. After Faithful Friends returned with the dogs, Lally and I went to pick up Coyote. At first glance, he reminded me a lot of Miko. That was the first arrow into my heart.
While Coyote was in my care, I had to take him for neutering. Back to Ticonderoga to drop him off at the vet one night after work. Another arrow in my heart when I went to pick him up, all stumbly from the anesthesia. While he recovered from his surgery, I told Faithful Friends that I was going to keep him. They waived the adoption fee, and I paid for his neutering instead. And just like that, Coyote was mine.
He never did answer to Coyote. I wonder if that’s a name he got in the shelter? He was surrendered because he was “too stubborn”. (I don’t know that he’s so much stubborn as he is thick-headed, but that’s just my opinion.) I do know that he was much more responsive since I figured out that his name wasn’t Coyote at all! We were playing one night, and he started making this weird WAAAAAAAAH kind of noise. I said he was a Moose, and he sat right up, ears perked at attention! I asked him if he was Moose, and I guess he agreed. He’s been my Moosie ever since.
Happy Moosiversary, my sweet boy. We’ll have vanilla ice cream tonight to celebrate.