Dogs Are My Life Now.

WE GOT ANOTHER DOG!!! I so desperately wanted to tell you sooner but Gary and I decided it would be best to wait so as to avoid another heartbreakfest like the last time we thought we were getting a dog.

We've been wanting another dog for a while now, but the urgency has really picked up since the break-in. Gary felt that if there were two dogs in the backyard, they might have a better chance at devouring any bad guys before they had a chance to pry open our back window and steal our belongings.

There were several parameters on which we refused to compromise, which definitely contributed to the length of our search. It had to be:

• A boy, 'cause they're cuddlier than girls
• Less than 6 months old
• Less than $300, because as you may have heard, we broke, broke
• Preferably a Border Collie mix, since that's what Peaches (Gary's beloved childhood dog) was

We've been scouring websites for local shelters for weeks, but we never found a perfect match. For whatever reason, Gary and I decided to stop by the humane society after work on Wednesday to have a look around, and there he was, all cute and squishy and spotted and PERFECT -- except for one thing: He wasn't up for adoption. Since he had come in as a stray, we had to wait until Sunday to give the owners a chance to come claim him if he was just lost. Luckily for us, the Pikes Peak Humane Society accepts bribes. A $20 "donation" under the table for first dibs the second he became available.* Ever since then we've just been hoping that whoever owned him was a total idiot, and whaddya know? Obviously they are, because they never came back to claim him.

We brought him home yesterday, and he and Brutus immediately hit it off. I can't tell you how relieved I was. Well, I can try: I WAS SO RELIEVED. I couldn't believe how smoothly it all went, which I'm sure Sarah and Gary are nice and sick of hearing after I short-circuited and became incapable of saying anything but that phrase over and over.

I'm having a little trouble containing my glee, but I'll do my best to sum it up in one word...and one video:

HAPPYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

*Just kidding, it was totally legit. I sometimes like to pretend I'm persuasive enough to get people to break the law.