On the Eve of Picking Up Athena

Today we signed the adoption agreement and paid the adoption fee for Athena. Dale and I will pick her up at noon tomorrow. We are very excited! The above piece is something I found at an antique store a few months ago and it made me think of Sophie. Obviously this was before we even knew we'd found another black lab to come into our lives. It's actually a bottle opener and I love how it captures the gentle eyes and gentle disposition of a black lab. God bless Sophie's soul and God bless Athena.

Athena Update

We heard from Kaitlin today and found out Athena's shots are all updated and that she now has a microchip. She also mentioned that, "The other evening I was sitting on the couch with her while she was lying down and she began urinating, but it seemed as though she didn't  know she was doing this. I asked the previous owner and he said that she had instances of leaking at times but he did not make it sound like full on urination like the other night. It has not happened since but I really don't know why this occurred.  They performed a urinalysis at the clinic to rule out an infection and the results were completely normal."

Dale and I are not worried about this. Sophie had the same problem and we used a medication called PPA which kept it under control. I wrote back to Kaitlin and told her the possibility of incontinence would not be an issue for us.

More Progress

I got an email this morning from Kaitlyn, the woman fostering Athena, saying the rescue organization won't need to do the home visit since we already went out to meet with her and because we are friends with Alyn and Chris. Athena (again, not pictured here) will get her shots updated this coming Monday.

Word from the Rescue Organization

We heard from the rescue organization today and they are looking over our application for Athena (who is as equally beautiful as the dog pictured above!).

Submitting the Application

Today I called Kaitlyn to let her know we are definitely interested in providing a home for Athena. Dale and I submitted the online application to start the adoption process. This is the picture of her that was on the rescue organization's website.

A New Possibility - Athena

Last week Dale got an email from a friend of ours. She told us her neighbor, a vet tech, is fostering a black lab named Athena. We were, of course, intrigued. Today we went over to visit her to see if she would be a good fit for us.non the drive over, Dale and I came up with lots of questions to ask and to make sure we remembered them all I typed them onto my notepad on my I pad. When we got to Alyn's house we went to see the neighbor who proceeded to bring out Athena. what a sweet dog! Kaitlyn, the vet tech and neighbor, had answers to all of the questions we had. Here a the questions we had along with the answers:

Does she sleep in a crate? No

Does she need to be crated when home without people? No. She will try to get in the garbage but otherwise leaves thing alone.

Does she sleep through the night? Yes

How long can she go before being let out? The longest she's made it so far has been 12 hours.

Is she good about being home alone? Yes

Does she have separation anxiety? No

Was she abused? No

Is she good with other people especially when company is over? Yes

Health history? Nothing notable and she is currently in good health.

Does she like to walk? Yes. It seems she has been without regular excerise for the past year.

Food? Eats dry food. I forget which brand she is on now but, when we asked, were told Science Diet would be fine.

Does she do okay without loud noises like thunder and fireworks? Kaitlyn couldn't answer this but told us she had bees used as a hunting dog so therefore was probably used to gunshots.

What would it cost to obtain her? $260 and that would include all shots and a microchip implant.

Kaitlyn's mother joined Dale, Alyn, and me to help answer our questions. Alyn's husband Chris and their 3 year old son Ellis also joined us. Athena was very gentle with Ellis and did well managing herself with a lot of people around. This is good news for although Sophie did really well with kids, she never figured out what to do when more than just Dale and I were around. She was always very anxious and on edge when it was ever more than just the two of us. This made is difficult to entertain.

Dale and I just want to "be" with all this until at least tomorrow afternoon when we're planning on calling Kaitlyn to let her know what we want to do. At this moment our answer would be yes but we just want to sleep on it to make sure we're not making that decision in haste. If we decide to go ahead with this we were told we'd have to have someone come and do a home visit.