There are frequently a whole hell of a lot of older pets in needs of homes.. that is kind of a sad dynamic.. because so many people like the puppies and the kittens, but after one or two years they lose interest or at least the market seems to be for the young ones.  You will be doing a great service to focus on adopting older pets because those are the ones that tend to be euthanized if a home cannot be found.

I felt really bad a year ago because I was trying to give away my two year old dog (looked very similar to the Dude's dog - except maybe a little lighter... so something in the 14kilo/30 lbs range).... and it was very stressful for me, and I am not sure if the dog noticed it.. but there were some points in which I was exploring the possibility of having a kind of foster care (saying they only work with "no kill" shelters) as a kind of back up plan.. but I kept thinking that I could not bear to leave my dog in such a situation.. even though some of them that I screened seemed to be very caring people, but they could not really guarantee me that they would spend time with my dog or even assure that my dog gets adequate daily attention...

So largely I spent nearly two months cajoling various friends and relatives, and I had a few false starts, and so many people said that they just loved my dog.. but could not take her for x, y, z reason and I even discovered some of them around the same time taking in puppies.. and other kinds of contradictory behaviors... I even had some people who had dogs that were way the fuck out of control, and my dog in comparison was very obedient.. Yeah, my dog had a lot of energy, but if I yelled at her about not doing certain things or even instructed her to go do and to stay in another spot.. she was very obedient.. including that for two years, I had been walking her on about a daily basis, so she would stop at the street and wait for me to tell her when she could go and even if I kept walking, she would wait and wait and wait for the command that she could join me.  In so many ways, an amazing dog, and so it was really causing me suffering to figure out placement for her.

So, even though I had several false starts - and I even rejected a few requests to take her because I was uncomfortable with the whole situation.. but then one day, I had one of my highschool friends message me about his friend who was looking for a dog that was already trained.. like mine, and so when I got in contact with with the husband and wife, and went to visit the location with just the wife there and the husband was on facetime because he was out of town on a trip, and I saw that they had a newborn (like maybe a month or two old) a toddler (like maybe a little less than 2 years old) and then some extended family members, and they kept saying that they did not want a puppy, but they want an already trained dog.  They had a house and a yard and even some extended family with farm areas (and animals)... so I though those were all great aspects.

One of the funny parts was that the while I was talking with the wife, her 2 year old kept pulling on my dogs hair and tail and just laughing and laughing.. You know the way kids get, and I was thinking that my dog is really friendly, but it might not be a great idea to keep pulling her hair and her tail.. and the mom just acted like it was not any kind of big deal... so it is funny that the dog would have to get used to some of those new family dynamics, and it was really easy for me to feel that I was leaving the dog in good hands, even though at the same time it was quite sad for me too... I mean two years of having a dog to yell at, and the dog was such a great pal to listen to much of what I said.. even though in the very beginning, the dog did not listen very well.. there is a kind of great feeling to have that kind of companionship.. and also the energy of the dog too.. when running around and going on walks and even if we went to some new situation that involved farm animals, or various kinds of streams of water, or lakes or even we had gone to the ocean too.. and also when we had been staying in places while traveling.. good to have a guard dog too, when in a strange place.

I frequently wondered what it would be like if the dog had gotten run over or something like that.  kind of like a crazy feeling that would be... I recall going on walks sometimes, and some stray dogs would join us.. and it was very uncomfortable to see the stray dogs.. because I would tell my dog to stop or go at the streets, but those stray dogs would not really do the same as my dog, and frequently I would worry that I may end up seeing the death of one of those dogs.. but luckily that did not happen during those couple of years.