Beginnings, Pt IV

Bach and Burton both caught Hol's eye, but it was Bach who became Helo in the end.

Yesterday Hol informed me that what led her to choose Bach was his description:

Hi, I'm Bach! I'm a little boy! A little on the bashful side I must admit. I weigh between five and eight pounds and I'll be ten weeks old the first of August. They tell me I'm a terrier-beagle-aussie mix. All I know is that I'm a puppy who loves to nuzzle and be cuddled. I play well with children and big and little dogs and I do nicely around farm animals too! I sure hope there's someone out there with a warm lap just for me.

Just waiting,

Bach

Hol e-mailed the shelter and got everything set up for us to complete Bach's (Helo's) adoption. The one problem, however, was that they were going to be doing all their adoptions on one day in August... on a day Hol would be in England. Hol was going back to visit her family and I was going to be on my own for a while with Charlie. We'd figured we could get Helo after Hol got back.

Hol was of course bummed to miss Helo's first days at home, but there wasn't really anything we could do about it. Before she left she made sure I had my computer's webcam functional so she could at least see the new guy when he got home. I had my friend Julie come down with me to get Helo so he'd have a warm lap to ride in on the way home.

Once we got to the shelter we immediately saw a small pen with what looked like beagle pups all playing with each other in it. I hadn't studied the photos of the dogs before leaving so I couldn't pick out which one was going to be ours, but I had my camcorder with me and got some footage of them playing. There were two of them playing a "King of the Hill"-type game in a concrete planter and then one over at the far side of the pen under a bench. That one turned out to be our Helo.

After filling out the requisite paperwork they brought the little guy out to Julie and me. He looked scared and very thin with a somewhat pudgy little puppy tummy. We got our picture taken with him and then were on our way home. He stayed sat nicely in Julie's lap the whole time just sort of observing everything that was going on.

About half-way back to Boston we decided to stop and see if he had to go to the bathroom. We parked towards the wooded area of the parking lot and I tried to give him a couple treats, which he was having none of. We walked him over to the underbrush and he immediately found a little hill which he declared himself king of and "viciously" defended by hopping around. I was a little nervous having him off leash since he seemed more active than Charlie had been on his trip home, but once I held out a few kibbles for him I knew he wasn't going anywhere. He wasn't a fan of the treats, but he loved the kibble.

We dropped Julie off at her apartment in Allston and then it was just Helo and I. He stayed in the front with me, curling up in his seat and resting the rest of the way home. I was a little nervous about introducing him to Charlie when we got home, but they got along well. By the end of the afternoon they were both curled up sleeping on the floor together.



He'd made it through our first day together, but there were still three more days until Hol came home and a lot more for me to learn about our little bagel.