The Leonard Saga

Hey everybody! Look what a good blogger I am lately. Five stars for me!

So for those of you who've been living in a cave without facebook, Sam and I have decided to adopt a dog. It's something we've wanted since forever, but we wanted to make sure we were happy with our living situation, had steady jobs, etc. before taking the plunge. So a week and a half ago, we realized that nearly all of those things were true (Sam is currently unemployed, more on this later, but that's proved to be a plus). So we started poking about on websites, mostly the excellent petfinder.com and came to the following conclusions:

1- despite our mutual love of them, a big dog was just out of the question. Our apartment is just toooooo small!

2- For that same reason, we needed to steer clear of anything in the terrier family, as they notoriously need tons of space and exercise. This eliminated a huge portion of adoptable small dogs.

3- For purely aesthetic reasons, no poodles, pomeranians, lhasa apsos, or pugs. We just ain't that kind a people. Again, eliminating enormous portions of the adoptable dog pool here.

4- We definitely wanted to adopt an older, house-trained, mellow dog. Puppies are great and all, but we just don't have the time to train a dog all that much. 

This put is into very narrow, heavily fished waters, but we were still optimistic because we had one thing going for us that no one else had (well, very few anyway): we really love funny looking dogs. Dogs that are a little quirky, who are obviously mutts, get us every time. And so after about a week of near constant net surfing, we found Leonard. 

It was a love at first sight kind of moment. I believe my exact words were "the ears, baby! the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeears!!!" He was the first dog we filled out a full application for (we made contact about a few others, but didn't fill formal applications) and the only one we really had our hearts set on. We heard back almost immediately with an invitation to go meet him at his "foster mother's" house in brooklyn. 

We were very nervous. We spruced up, looked our best, bought a toy and some treats, and quizzed  each other on why we would make an awesome "forever family" for Len. When we arrived, however, we found that leonard lived with a bunch of girls our age in a, um, fixer-upper of an apartment. Despite a few awkward moments (I might have unintentionally implied that they were all really ugly or lesbians. within five seconds of walking in the door. And they had never heard of Leonard Nemoy or Spock, so our theories about how Leonard was named were shot to pieces, and they thought we were uber dorks. And sam accidently terrified poor Len with a squeaky toy, but was quickly forgiven) it was pretty clear that we would be a good match for him. And we found out that Leonard had been dropped off at the shelter in January, and in all those months we were the only people who had even met him, let alone wanted to adopt him. 

This brings us to more details about our new roomate:

- He's half Australian Cattle Dog, half Blue Heeler. That means in his younger days he was quite the runner, and even now he's most definitely an active Senior.

- He's about nine years old. We're not sure what his life expectancy is at the moment, but that certainly makes him an older dog. We're making a vet appointment for him tomorrow, so we'll know more soon. 

- He has a few small issues that led to him not being adopted for so long: despite his enormous ears, he's quite hard of hearing... so far, this has proven to be more hilarious than anything else. He also likes to be in control of walks, wandering all over, which wouldn't be a big deal in the suburbs, but in the city it could possibly be dangerous. So he wears a special kind of leash that helps him respond to tugs better. It makes me really sad, though, because it looks just like a muzzle, and I don't want people to think he's a meanie! Oh, and because of the hearing thing, his foster mom says he has a fear problem with other dogs. We've taken him on three walks now, and haven't seen any evidence of that, but we trust her.

- He also has some really delightful traits: he's very calm, mellow, but loves the outdoors. He frequently gets itches on his schnoz and rubs it on anything he can reach. He claims areas he likes, like his bed, by wiggling all over it and trying to burrow down into it. cutest. thing. ever. He also can give a guilt trip like no other, looking over his shoulder with those big sad eyes, flopping those big ears down... OMG I LOVE THIS DOG!!

Ok, ok, calming down. It's only been a day so far, but this just feels really right. He's settling in nicely, hardly nervous at all anymore, really relaxed. Sam is giddy as a puppy... right now they're lying on the rug on their tummies, bonding. Sam's been really worried about this unemployment stint that's been looming over him (his job was over once tax season was. I say thank goodness, his boss was a horrible human being and sam has plenty of money saved up). But now he has Leonard to occupy his time while he job hunts, and it's gonna be really good for them both. Although Sam may not be unemployed long, my boss is trying to get him a data entry type job at his hospital. Apparently it pays really well and has benefits! A good thing for a struggling young actor type to have.

So yeah, there will be frequent Leonard updates from now on. They may compete with baby updates (coming soon!) for adorableness. And when adorable things compete, we all win. 

Oh, and here are a bunch of pictures that are currently on Facebook as well, for those of you who can't access them there. HE'S SO CUTE!!!

Love to all!