Today it's been one week since Sunflower arrived. Here she is:
The story in brief: I had been checking Petfinders for a while when I first saw the picture of Sunflower. The first thing that attracted me to her was her name; since my last dog was named Marigold, I felt there was the flower name connection that surely must mean something (I swear, I'm not suspicious and scorn things like "signs" or "karma"...most of the time). It turned out, though, that she had a giant hernia and the rescue group was raising money to have it removed. I sent in my contribution and waited. They put up a notice at the end of July that she had had the surgery, but no indication of when she'd be available for adoption. I wanted to wait for her, but continued to check the site and look at other dogs, just in case there was one that seemed extra right.
Sadly, there were so many dogs that needed homes. I wished I could take them all. But a number of the ones I looked at had restrictions from their rescue groups--they couldn't be adopted to a home outside a certain area, they needed a home with a yard, they wanted the dog to go to a home with other dogs. I also knew that I would have a problem if any group called my landlord, but decided I would just push through with either the truth (no matter what my landlord said, I had a legal right to have a dog in this apartment) or a good lie (give my parents address).
I kept hesitating, though, because I wanted to wait for Sunflower. Finally she was ready to be adopted. I put in an application for her, but then didn't hear anything. There was really only one other dog who caught my attention, but everyone told me I shouldn't take him because he had an existing medical problem and needed to be on medication. Their point was that someone in my always precarious financial condition shouldn't take on a dog that had potential to run up big vet bills quickly. Finally,though, I decided I'd at least inquire about him and find out how much his pills cost. But to my surprise, even though I'd only skipped two days of checking Petfinder, he was adopted. I wrote to the rescue group just to be sure, and yes, he was gone. Good for him, bad for me. I was angry at myself for listening to all the naysayers and letting him get away, despite how I really felt.
Then the next day, Sunflower's rescue group contacted me. All I had to do was talk to them and if we seemed like a good match, she was mine. She sounded great to me, so I put down a deposit on her adoption fee. The only problem was that my schedule, my dad's schedule (he had offered to drive me to Connecticut to pick her up), and her "foster mom's" schedule, we had to put off the pick up until early October--the 8th, to be precise.
Little is known about Sunflower's history. The rescue group said she seemed used to living in a home, but was found wandering the streets. No one knows how long she was out there, but they thought she was pretty traumatized by it--and her experience in the noisy town shelter as well. I suspect that when the hernia got really big, her previous people might have felt like they couldn't deal with the medical expense and dumped her.
The foster family and rescue group had warned me that Sunflower could be shy but once she got used to you she adored you. I prepared for her to be standoffish. When we walked in, though, she was ready to be picked up, petted, and give tons of kisses (if you can't deal with a dog licking your face, she's not the dog you want to be around; I'm okay with that, but have been washing my face a lot...). She loves riding in cars, so the ride back to New York was a lot of fun for her (and a great way for her to get used to me, I think). The foster family had said she didn't have a lot of experience walking on a leash, but she took to it like a pro.
Sunflower likes walking a lot--at a very fast pace. She does a lot of very interesting stretches, so she might have been a yoga instructor. She is a picky eater. She enjoys jumping on furniture and climbing steps. Whenever she sees a car by the curb with a door open, she tries to get in. She likes chewing on her toys; sometimes she rolls over on her back and holds her chew toy in her front paws and chews on it that way, which makes her look like a bear cub. In other words, she is ridiculously cute.
It's been hard to get pictures of her. The light in my apartment is terrible, so the flash on my camera phone (the only camera I have, sigh...) goes off whenever I try to take a picture of her inside. The lag on the shutter then gives enough time for her to blink from the flash, so most of the pictures I've tried to take have her with her eyes shut. I got the one above outside yesterday (apparently the last time we can expect to see the sun for a while), as well as the one below. The indoor picture below shows her sleeping on the trunk in my room that she likes to nap on.
So that's the Sunflower story so far--hopefully there will be more to come!
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