A Girl Called Alli

As I shared with you in a blog titled Is It Time? a while back, we are both animal lovers. But after we lost our last pets, we both decided we were not going to have any more because the heartbreak of losing them is so damned hard. But now that we have plenty of room to have pets again, we were trying to decide if it was time to rethink that position. Many of you responded to that blog with emails and comments telling us that we really should consider getting a pet, or even two.

As I also said in that blog, I have had quite a few German shepherds, which in my opinion is the best dog breed in the world. So I started looking for German shepherd rescues online and found quite a few dogs available. But just any German shepherd wouldn’t do. Whether it’s a dog or a cat, we have to bond with it to make it a successful situation for everybody involved.

A few days ago I found a year-old German shepherd rescue living with a family in Lacey’s Springs, 170 miles north of us. I had looked at a lot of dogs online but there was something about this one that caught my attention, so yesterday we drove up to meet her.

The quickest route is taking Interstate 65 N out of Birmingham, but what fun would that be? Instead we took a series of two-lane roads up through Fayette, Natural Bridge, Wren, and Hartsell. It was a winding, hilly route through some beautiful country and certainly not the quickest way to get to our destination. But eventually, we got there and met Alli. And what a pretty girl she is!

But looks aren’t everything, and I wanted to spend some time with her and see how we got along. So while Terry talked to the people that had her, I walked her around a little bit on a leash and we got acquainted. I’m not sure if I chose her or she chose us, but either way, she came home with us.

The folks that had her said she was overactive, but they had several little kids and another dog, and a cat, and I think she was just reacting to all of the hubbub going on around her all the time. On the ride home, she sat or laid in the back of the van and was just fine.

We stopped at Pet Supermarket in Northport to pick up some things for her, and she behaved very well in the store, getting lots of compliments from customers and staff alike. A couple of the employees fed her some treats and she really liked that. Alli is very food motivated.

We also stopped at our son’s house on the way home so Travis and Geli could meet her, and just like in the store, she was friendly to these strangers and perfectly calm.

She has at least some basic obedience training because she will sit on command, lie down when told to, and when Terry and I were eating dinner she started toward the table (the people that had her said they fed her from the table, but we don’t do that), so I took her off a short distance and told her to stay there, and she did with no problem at all. She is also housebroken and let us know when she needed to go out.

German shepherds usually bond with one person in the family more than others and I was hoping it would be me, but I have a feeling it’s probably going to be with Terry. While we were watching the evening news she was lying on the floor in front of Terry’s recliner, and even stuck her paw into one of Terry’s Crocs.

She is underweight and definitely has some fleas, and the folks that had her had no idea if she’s had her shots or not. It also looks like she may be coming into heat. I’m going to try to get her into a veterinarian that was recommended by the folks at the Pet Supermarket, who also has excellent ratings on Yelp, sometime today if they can fit us in. We want to have her checked out, get her shots, arrange to have her spayed, and also get her microchipped.

Now we need to find just the right kitten for Terry, and we have a lead on one of those. I will tell you more about that when we know more.

It’s Thursday, so it’s time for a new Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of The Last Call, the first book in my dear friend George Wier’s Bill Travis mystery series. We lost George a while back, but his amazing talent lives on through his great stories. I only have a few of his audiobook codes left, and once they are gone there won’t be any more.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.