Gotcha Andy!

Some good friends of ours adopted a little boy a couple of years ago and from them I learned about “Gotcha Day”. In addition to a child’s birthday many American families celebrate the day their adopted child was placed in their home. It’s a sweet way of acknowledging just how precious this adopted child is and how life changing the experience is for both parent(s) and child.

While adopting a dog is nothing like adopting a child I can say that it is a life changing experience. Andy’s “Gotcha Day” was April 13, 2012. We got a call from the Humane Society earlier that week telling us the family that originally put in to adopt “Scooter” had backed out and that we were next in line. By that weekend we found ourselves parents to a rambunctious and willful puppy we named Anderson; Andy for short. While I don’t regret the decision there are times I feel like I’m experiencing a mid-life pregnancy. Raising a puppy is challenging. It takes patience, sacrifice, and discipline and quite often I feel tired, old, and ill equipped. But look at the face in the picture above. That is the face of one content pup. He knows he has a forever home and I know there’s no turning back!