Happy George-aversary

At the shelter
"I own you"

July 31 marked our two year anniversary of adopting the fuzziest dog in the world, George Gell. For those of you who haven't heard the story 100 times, here we go:

We took a trip to the fantastic Northeast Animal Shelter in Salem, MA. The plan - get a medium sized (20-30 lbs.), non-baby (2+ years old) dog. The first dogs we see when we walk in the places are George and his sister. They are squashed together in a pen with a card reading "Marcos and (name redacted since I can't remember it) - 5 month old Great Pyrenees". Great Pyrenees grow to be 100+ pounds and roughly resemble the baby pet polar bear that Jared already vetoed. However, I see him walking towards their pen, intrigued by their furry puppyness.

"DON'T EVEN LOOK AT THEM!". I knew we didn't want a big dog or a puppy, and I couldn't risk falling in love. "They are too young and will get too big". We moved past the crate without making eye contact.

We looked at every other dog in the place, and even took out a few to play with. And although one or two was sweet, we couldn't get the little fluffhead siblings out of our heads. It didn't help that the shelter's volunteers, clearly recognizing a pair of absolute suckers, kept walking the dogs right past us, taunting us with their lamb-like looks and baby faces.

"What do you think?" I asked Jared, the 86th time Marcos walked by us.

"Well, we should probably just meet one of them," he said.

We walked over to their cage and asked to meet the boy puppy. We took him into one of the little rooms they provide for prospective owners/total suckers to play with the dogs. The puppy demonstrated an overwhelming interest in the treats I had in my purse (note that he has not been interested in treats since that day). He scampered around, being spazzy and cute in general and tricking us into loving him. We took him for a walk. He saw a greyhound, was terrified, and leaned into my legs for comfort. I know now that he was obviously faking this fear in order to make the protective-mom synapses in my brain fire. We went back inside and sat down with him, Jared and I in chairs and he sleeping on one of Jared's shoes. Con artist.

"Well?" I said.

"I think he's a Gell" said Jared.

We filled out the paperwork (as we signed they warned us that he might grow to be 120 pounds!). We bought him a new collar to replace the girly daisy-chain one he was wearing. We walked out to the parking lot, calling "Marcos" to see if he would respond, or if we could change his name without guilt. He jumped right into the car and we argued about what to name him all the way home. My votes: Lenny (after Lenny Briscoe from Law and Order) or Bruce (obvious origins). Jared's: Howard Johnson. Finally, I said "What about George?", and either because he thought it was a brilliant plan or because he was tired of talking about it, Jared agreed.

We brought George home where he promptly climbed into his crate, refused to pee for 48 hours, and, as we fell in love with him, began to tolerate us. He grew over the next few weeks from being a silent, shy, puppy into a stinking brat who chewed the couch, barked at us, and with no shame insisted on being the center of our lives.

Two years later, he's slightly more mature and far more cuddly. He's made our little twosome into a family, and if we ever have a human baby half as wonderful as our dog baby we'll be very lucky indeed.

We love you, Georgie. Happy two years.