Before I attempted adopting a poodle I was warned how difficult it might be. “Fill out an application at every rescue organization you can find,” one friend told me. “Be prepared for a home visit,” said another.
I shrugged off all of this advice with a how-hard-can-it-be attitude and logged onto Petfinder.com. Surely the perfect dog was waiting for us in a 20-mile radius to be picked up that day.
Wrong.
After my first day of looking two things were clear: Lots of special-needs animals are in need of safe homes, and adopting a purebred poodle that was good with kids wasn’t going to be easy.
If we could have taken the poodle part out of the equation our choices would have opened up, but unfortunately, poodles are the only breed my allergies can handle. The doodle craze means that there are lots of labradoodles or goldendoodles available, but plain poodles are hard to come by. Many of them up for adoption are man-haters or have qualifiers like “cannot be placed in a house with children.”
A month later I was dutifully following all the advice the pet experts told me. I filled out applications everywhere. Personal references were on standby. My friend Karen Knight who fosters pups for the Animal Aid and Rescue Foundation had her contacts looking too.
Karen suggested I try the website RescueMe.org, which is how I learned about a charity in Texas called Tall Tails that was flying 51 dogs to a Petco in Olympia for a special adoption event. One of those animals was a silver, 25-pound poodle named Mike. Eureka! I filled out yet another application and, after they checked our references, we were approved for pre-adoption.
Our drive down to Olympia on adoption day was pregnant with euphoria. My kids had a blue collar with special tag that said “Mike” all ready for him. We stopped for breakfast at The Poodle Dog restaurant in Fife and nobody could eat a bite.
When he finally arrived at the Petco the place was packed. Inside the pens we saw a small poodle. But he was cream and brown, or café au lait in poodle terminology, not silver. He was also much smaller than we expected, only 11 pounds. Was this Mike, the dog we had pre-adopted?
Yes, it was! His name wasn’t Mike though, that was only a formality for his paperwork. The poor dog was originally from New Mexico and had spent an entire year bouncing from shelter to shelter in Texas. Nobody knows what hardships he overcame.
Whatever the dog’s name was, one thing was clearly true. This poodle was great with children and in need of a forever family. On the way home to Edmonds my kids agreed on a new name of the pooch, who slept between them and didn’t bark once.
Welcome home, Merlin. We know you’ll love Washington.
Jennifer Bardsley lives in Edmonds. Her book “Genesis Girl” is scheduled to be released in 2016. Find her online on Instagram @the_ya_gal, Twitter @jennbardsley or at teachingmybabytoread.com.
Fur &Feathers
Interested in adopting an animal? Check out The Herald’s Fur &Feather blog to see pictures of dogs and cats up for adoption at the Everett Animal Shelter. www.heraldnet.com/furandfeathers
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