Bobby's Tale-- The Adoption.

These were two of the first few pictures I took of Bobby, probably from the first day or two after I got him back from the animal shelter. You can see that he was super skinny, because there was basically no meat on the bones, he didn't even have a butt cheek!

I didn't know what came over me that day when I went to the animal shelter. I had a broken old Blackberry that had a internet service worse than a go phone, and after I decided to search for an animal shelter address for the first time, it led me to the middle of a residential area. I almost gave up but tried another address and ended up finding the shelter I wanted to find. Did I suddenly gained a interest in sheltered animals? Or was Bobby calling me that day to pick him up somehow? Who knows! It was, at least I heard, a very high kill place. Pets are kept there for only five days. It was Bobby's seventh day. When I went there, my eyes immediately spotted him because he was standing up with his paws holding the metal bar and cried the loudest in there and shaked his tail very very hard. He was locked in the middle of a row of cages, very dark inside and he kind of blended in, so I didn't get to see him very well other than that he had very shinny and large eyes, and a very very big black nose, it was dry and cracking. He had this thing that never quite changed, when he was very very scared, he screams, I mean, not like a bark, but a scream, like a mad little girl on top of her lungs. Our groomer later laughed and told me when I sent him for a hair cut the first time that she had never met a dog who screamed like that, I cracked up and said, "yep, that's just him." So then I bent down to see him on that day, he reached out both paws, squeezed my hand and pulled it into the cell to lick it. He also grabbed my heart into the cell. When I got up and ready to walk down the hall a bit more, he started crying, it kind of surprised me, so I went back. I looked at his perfectly round shiny eyes and cute black nose, couldn't believe a dog like that had to be locked up in a cell. It was such a sad place that I almost cried looking at all the dogs there. It took all in all ten minutes to take down his number and go up to the office to fill out an application. Then, he was mine.

I was told that he would be ready to be picked up the next day after he was spayed. After I paid a meager $80, I grabbed my wallet with both hands and walked away, but then immediately turned back to the counter. I have this annoying habit of repeating myself many times of the same questions when I know perfectly that I am being redundant. I walked up to the cashier and asked him again, "so this procedure that's going to be done, is it safe?" He rolled his eyes, and said, "woooooo noooooo it is very dangerous, is it very dangerous?" He asked the girl behind him, and she said, "yep." I still had my wallet in both of my hands held high up to my chest and said, " O.K., thank you." And then turned around and walked out. When the emotions started to chill, I thought to myself, "oh, no, what have I done?" That night when I got into bed, I thought, "the little black dog is having a tough time right now, but he doesn't know that after this day, tomorrow he will get sunshine and lots of running on the grass!" Then I fell alseep.

The next day I shopped for a new dog bed, new food bowl, a new blanket, and putted it in the passenger seat and came to the shelter again to pick him up. I could barely contain my excitment, imagine my first time rescuing a little dog from the shelter, it was a good deed! I was directed to wait outside a mobile building where Bobby would be released to me, then I saw the vet, he had a big belly and a greasy apron on, and he looked kind of like a butcher. He said to me, "ok, let's see the paper work, hmm, yeah, ok, this little guy right? haha, very energetic! Wait here!" He went in, shut the door behind him, a while later he came out and handed me a stack of papers and a dog. I looked at him not understanding what he meant by "very energetic," but I was soon to find out. I took a couple of hard stares at the little black dog making sure it was the same one I picked yesterday, and took a look at the paper work that he handed me, on the column of Pain medication applied at this time, it said, "None." So are you telling me that you cut off his balls without giving him any pain medication???

He certainly didn't look like it. Right off the bat he was jumping up and down, smelling everything around him, pulling hard on the leash dragging me left and right with him, then I finally got a good look at him under the sun. He was much skinnier than I thought, his hair looked really dry and messy, it was not the all black and shiny coat like I imagined at all.

The whole riding home I put this little guy near me on the passenger seat. He behaved really good in the car, but looked a little unsettling, not knowing where he was being taken to now. And I felt a little unsettling, not knowing what to expect, kind of felt like I just randomly picked up a homeless person and putted him in my car and took him into my private home. When I opened the door to my house, Kelly jumped up like a cat and viciously barked. I had to separate them for a little while, realizing that perhaps she didn't "really" understand that serious heart to heart conversation I had with her the night before about bring in a new dog. After realizing that the new dog was not going away, Kelly got mad.

The first night was really hard, Kelly soon went from being mad to afraid, she hid in the little space between the bed and the night stand and stuck out her fluffy head to check if Bobby was there, and only when I took him out of my bedroom, did she came out to play. Not knowing this new environment, for a couple of times, Bobby tried to bite Kelly's neck, not for real, but to scare her. That night, afraid Bobby would attack Kelly, I decided to put him in the bathroom right next to my bedroom. I had a sizable bathroom that's a little bigger than my bedroom, don't ask me why, it just was! So I putted Bobby there and closed the door, he immediately started to scream, I right away felt bad, so I let him back into the room and let him slept next to my bed. I was amazed at how sturdy he seemed, he just got spayed, had a bit of a high temperature, and yet he was very happy and excited. He couldn't take a bath for the first week because of the surgery stitches even though his hair was quite dirty. I ran my fingers on his rib cage and butt and felt nothing but bones, and felt so much sympathy for this little guy. The shelter said he was a stray, but who abondoned him? Where was he from? What had happened to his last home? How did he look like when he was a baby? If only he could tell me... The whole night I was half asleep, half awake to keep a watch out for him and Kelly, and so did the next several night. It was a little stressful, a little funny, and a lot of excitment.

Later my boyfriend came to visit me, and he name the little black dog Bobby, after Bobby Kennedy. So that's how it all started, a really plain and humble beginning, nothing exceptional, but what turned out to be the most amazing and precious 13 months I had with the most amazing little dog in the world. My home was old and crumbly, my kitchen was crammed and small, but I felt lucky because I had everything that I needed.