The "Non-Sciencey" Animal Scientist: Meet Smokey

We dedicated most of our weekend to dog hunting. After a long and exhausting application process I was finally cleared to visit Rose and Dusty. Evidently the Shelter that had Cam "tried" to get a hold of me to talk about one of my references and when I didn't answer the phone the one time they called, they assumed I was no longer interested in the dog and adopted him to someone else. Grr. He had been my number one to that point.

Well, we went to Paris Friday evening to check out Rose, a border collie lab mix. I loved her. Her hair was so soft and she was so loving and happy to be out of her kennel. But she was 55 lbs of rambunctious lab. Shelby frankly seemed annoyed by her. She gave Joseph kisses and made him giggle. However, we worried that she wouldn't just knock Joseph down, but might send him flying across the room.

Saturday we went to Petsmart in Lexington to visit Dusty, a border collie beagle mix. She was 20 lbs of timidness and her foster mom said she could be kinda neurotic. No biggie...Shelby needs counseling too. She was so sweet and had had such a hard time finding a home. My heart just went out to her. I liked that she was small and border collie and beagle mixes are awesome. That's what Shelby is although I'm certain he has some hound in him as well. She got after Shelby when he got a bit too "sniffy" so he was kind of leery of her. Joseph was tired and grumpy since he decided he needed to get up at 5:45 that morning so he really didn't want anything to do with her. We left still undecided.

We grabbed some fast food and started discussing the dogs. We both liked Rose but she is just a lot of dog. We both also liked Dusty, but didn't really know if we wanted another neurotic dog like Shelby.

We had looked at the dogs available at the KY Humane Society in Louisville and both like a dog named Bernie who was a 7 month old hound mix. He was a little younger than I was wanting, but he aced his temperment and behavior test and was approved for toddlers. I called them up to make sure he was still available. He was. So we trucked on to Louisville which also gave Joseph some time to nap in the car.

Bernie actually turned out to look just about identical to Shelby in build. He's smaller, but he will probably end up being the same size. The meet and greet with him and Shelby went well. We decided that Bernie was a good happy medium. Not too rambunctious, but not timid. We actually thought that we would keep the name Bernie, but Michael just couldn't remember it and decided we needed to change it. The UT game was on at the time so I suggested Smokey after the mascot. We both liked it and it has stuck.

He is such a sweet little dog and refuses to get on the furniture but I'm sure that will change eventually. Shelby seems happier already with his new friend. And I couldn't ask for a better dog around Joseph.

I hope you all had a great weekend! Joseph and I are both a little sick and puny. It hit me hard last night. And of course, Joseph refuses to slow down!!