Beagles and Blessings

My whole life was spent in the company of one dog or another. Scottie was a sheltie and he was my friend from the beginning of my life until grade 4. In grade 5 he passed away and we got Kaylie, another sheltie, who lived for the next 12 years. Near the end of Kaylie's life we adopted a second dog named Shadow. He was a collie/lab mix and Kaylie tolorated him. Unfortunately he had to be put down because he had severe anxiety problems. Kaylie died shortly after that and that was the end of all the dogs in my life.

It's been well over a year since I decided Joe and I needed a dog of our own, and it's been since Christmas that Joe has agreed with me. We wanted a beagle. He or she would be 2+ years old, small-medium size, calm, quiet, good with kids, good with cats and Joe specifically wanted our dog to have "floppy ears". I looked at online adoption websites and we popped in and out of local shelters all turning up "empty". At least until last Saturday.

Charlie (as we have affectionately named him) has the whole package and more. We spent 2 hours with him last weekend and he was the perfect little gentleman but the only trouble was we wouldn't be able to come back for him for another week. We asked the shelter worker if she could hold him and she said it was against their rules. It looked like we had to take our chances. We went outside with him one more time and we gave him to God. We said "If he is the dog for us, he will be here when we can come back to get him. If he gets adopted, God must have someone better in mind."

We walked back into the shelter prepared to say thank you and goodbye when we heard the worker say "I just got off the phone with [the shelter manager]. We'll hold him for you and you can pick him up next week." Praise the Lord!

I've done some work for the shelter in the past and had helped raise some money for their spay and neuter fund. As a thank you they are giving Charlie to us for free and are having him neutered too!! What a blessing!