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May 10, 2010 16:45

He stared at me with deep brown eyes questioning as he stood in the doorway and promptly relieved himself on the leg of a nearby table. He is our new puppy Ira Stinky-butt and the table was placed in the hall of my father-in-law's house.

Ira came to us at the end of February to fill the hole left in our lives by the loss of my old friend Sage the cat who died two days before X-mas in 2009. My wife and I decided together to rescue a shelter dog for our own reasons. Having never owned a dog before, of my own volition the etiquette of the second hand dog market alluded me like a sea slug at a débutante ball. There are kill shelters, no kill shelters, rescue groups and "foster homes" all of which are very different.

It started when my wife's best friend who happens to be vet called us with a one of a kind find. A Basset hound lab mix, deemed weirdo by her lab techs. This little dog only stood about 10 inches high but weighed 40 lbs due to the fact that he inherited the thick bone structure of the basset hound. At first I was skeptical as I wanted our dog to be my running buddy. I came down to look at the dog after my wife had hopelessly fallen in love with him and after some inspection told the vet "cut him and bag him, we'll take him". She scheduled the surgery for that next and we went home and settled on the name Gonzo once he joins our family.

The next day came and Gonzo's owner showed up and took him. My wife being four months pregnant broke down under the weight of hormones and pressure transforming into a sobbing, irreconcilable mess. That was when the mission started. I set out on a dog hunt asking for references on line, spilling through Google searches and contacting friends of friends on facebook and combing petfinder.com for another odd combination of unplanned dog sex. That was when I started to investigate a local "no kill shelter". This involved me calling one woman who I told about my canine needs and she matched me up with a list of three dogs, Snickers a golden retreiver who who would not return my phone calls, Roxy a stout lab mix (possibly pit bull) who was recovering from mange and had a convict's scar from her brow to the end of her snout.

"How about we meet at feeders supply so we can evaluate you and your wife?" The convict dog's foster mom asked. I always assumed I was finished with dating when I got married. However, with the soundtrack to the film Chicago in my head I agreed to meet this dog pimp woman and the this dog so appropriately named Roxie. As the clock ticked away and our rendezvous with Roxie approaching faster and faster my wife suggested we go to the pound (aka, kill shelter) tomorrow after work.

The pound was not what I expected, the campus was composed of two trailers and a cinder block "I" shaped building lined with kennels and a room for cats to freely romp in the comfort of the indoors. The dogs however, did not have that luxury. We were given a pencil and paper and told to walk down a log cold hallway filled with barking dogs. After passing through a gateway of two monstrous barking rottweilers each as large as the kennel they occupied we walked past, an old basset hound, a kennel of small barking lab mix puppies, a husky and a thousand mixed beagles because apparently begals are the rapists of the dog world. Each time we saw a dog we wanted to look like we would write his name and number on a sheet.

"There are a lot of black dogs" my wife said.

"Yes they are always here the longest. Most of the dogs we put to sleep are black dogs." said the girl acting as our tour guide.

"What about that one?" Said my wife.
"Which one" I replied."The white one with the brown feet?"
"No the little black one in the back." She said.
"What's his name? Baxter, write it down." I said, "Hey, look this is a pure bread husky, he's beautiful."
"Ok, write him down." she said.

Once we had filled our our card we were taken to a meeting room. This room looks like a large shower with a barrel of dog biscuits and a single chair. I stood while my wife sat and the girl brought Baxter to meet us. He was skinny black puppy with white spotted boarder collie feet to immediately put his front paws in my wife's lap and buried his head in her lap. He stared at us with is big brown eyes and I took him way from her. I sat him down and performed "the child test on him", shaking his paws lightly pulling on his hears and tail and he responded submissively. I fed him a treat. Shortly afterwards he was our dog. We named him Ira Stinky-Butt, Ira from my favorite journalist Ira Glass from This American Life and Stinky butt because he smelled like ass.

Today Ira peed on my father in laws floor because we are still learning his signals but we have a long time to get them right. So far is a wonderful running partner and has turned out to be the perfect dog for us.

dogs, long entry, ira

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