Today boys and girls, I'm going to talk about something else besides bad blogging and re-entry shock. Its no mystery judging by the sparse content of the blog during 2009 that this year, thus far, has been rather busy. So, my idea is to catch up by talking about my Boston Terrier, Mayflower, who turned 2 years old on July 8.

As soon as Keith and I had a signed P&S agreement for our first home, first things came first. Not movers. Not furnishings, not curtains. A dog. I've wanted a dog for the longest time. Although I love my kitties, the fact is...kitties aren't dogs. Not even close.

For months and months I had been longingly looking at the animals on Petfinder.com. Keith and I had basically narrowed our breed choices down to three. We were looking for a dog that did well in apartments, didn't have too many health problems, less shedding, good with kids, and was energetic, but didn't need constant exercise.

Thus, we narrowed it down to three breeds:

1) Greyhound
2) French Bulldog
3) Boston Terrier

Keith really likes Greyhounds, and we both liked the idea of adopting one of these especially since greyhounds are being taken out of racing in this state (good). Its not uncommon to go to your local Petco and see a greyhound or two shyly lurking about. Not uncommonly they have scars, missing tails, even missing legs! Racing isn't kind to them and they are dumped as soon as they aren't fit for racing anymore.

Greyhounds actually are great apartment dogs. Yes, they need a 20 minute walk each day, but that's really about it. Mostly they're couch potatoes. They can run, but they don't need constant exercise. They are very sweet and docile. They have short hair and don't shed much. The most important thing is making sure they have a comfy bed to lay on since hard floors can be hard on them since they don't have much fat at all.

Ultimately, we ruled out the greyhound for 2 major reasons. First, we have cats, and we knew that for at least the first few weeks they would be running from the greyhound. Which could be an issue, since after all, greyhounds were bred for hunting game. Ghost looks suspiciously like a white fuzzy rabbit--like the fuzzy white rabbit used to get the greyhounds to run around a betting track. Images of a dog tearing my cats apart made me a little leery. Lastly, our new home is on Route 9. Greyhounds are bigger dogs and what if I got a car chaser and couldn't rein them in since they're bigger? I've lost one dog (a chocolate Lab named Daisy when I was 16) due to getting hit by a car, and needless to say, I don't ever want to repeat the experience.

That brought us down to the Frenchie and the Boston. Both are compact. Both are short haired with minimal shedding and grooming. Both are good with kids, and great apartment dogs. I've actually lived with Frenchies for a short time as an exchange student too.

Ultimately, it came down to looking at breed info, the Frenchie has more genetic tendencies towards more health issues. That's mostly because the Boston Terrier isn't altogether too far from "muttdom." The Boston breed is only about 150 years old.

Beyond that, it was pretty easy to find a suitable Boston. As luck would have it, a non-profit organization based out of Rhode Island, Friends of Homeless Animals, helps all kinds of dogs, but especially Bostons. They only work out of volunteer homes, rather than a shelter and rely on a network of caring people to rescue dogs from high-kill shelters (particularly in the Southern U.S.) and bring them up to the Northeast to find forever homes.

And such was the story of our Mayflower. After signing up for a dog and putting a $200 deposit down, we had to wait until closer to our moving date to get our dog. A few weeks before our move we looked at the possibilities on Petfinder. A dog named "Lulu" had been saved to my bookmarks for awhile and I liked her photos. The thing was that she was deaf and the ad said that they preferred an adopter with experience with deaf dogs. I personally had no experience with deaf dogs, nor did Keith.

Keith got on the phone with Roie Greigo who is the founder of the organization and they discussed the list of doggies I had my eye on. When we asked about Lulu, Roie had nothing but wonderful things to say about her disposition and TONS of personality, and didn't seem so worried that we had no experience with deaf dogs. So, we got the name and contact info for Lulu's foster mom, Kirstin, who just happened to be in....Davis Square. We were prepared to have to drive anywhere in the NE to meet this dog, but as luck would have it Lulu was very close by. So we set out to meet her.

Now, Kirstin had warned us that Lulu might be shy meeting strangers in her home, as she had been a little more cautious with other visitors. We asked what treats she might like and brought a few tennis balls too. As soon as the door opened, we had a 20-some lb. Boston Terrier rocket launch herself at us licking us with major tail wagging, and then she began to paw and jump at the Petco bag we had in our hands as if to say, "Did you bring me something? Really!? What did you bring me, huh? Can I have it! Can I HAVE it!" There was nothing apprehensive or shy about her. One couldn't casually tell that she was deaf unless her back was turned and you called to her--but her attention was on us so consistently she always seemed to know what we were saying. We played with her for the better part of an hour totally falling in love with her, and Lulu was decidedly pouty when we went to leave. But we didn't leave before telling Kirstin that she had the dog we had always wanted and that we were ready to move to the home inspection step.

However, that home inspection step meant that we had to be moved into a home first. After what was literally the most stressful condo closing known to mankind (a blog topic for another time) we were relatively set up, albeit with cardboard boxes everywhere, and had the worst of our doggy-dangerous stuff secured it was time to fetch our new dog. FOHA agreed to have the inspection just after Lulu moved in due to scheduling issues, but wanted the adoptee to start getting settled.

We took the harness and tags we had bought for her and a dog bed we'd purchased as well. We brought some treats and a few of her toys as a distraction as well as a winter covering since it was mid-February and quite cold for a brachycephalic breed to be out without some covering (yes, some of those dog coats you see are actually functional and required, not decorative).

We pulled up to the street we had visited a few short weeks before and Keith and I proceeded to argue which triple-decker was the correct one (it was dark and all the houses looked the same). As we were arguing, the distinctive silhouette of a Boston Terrier's head popped up on the second floor window of the triple-decker I was gesturing to. Despite being deaf, Lulu knew we had come for her. It was a good omen.

Henceforth, I will refer to her by her forever name, Mayflower. As everyone knows, our cats are named Ghost and Goblin because we got them around Halloween. One time, many years ago Keith and I were driving (yet again) to Pennsylvania to see family and jokingly discussed that maybe all our family pets should be adopted around holidays and given appropriate names. Some were easy, St. Patrick's Day=Shamrock, Pat, Patty, Ireland, Easter=Bunny, Chicky, Peep, 4th of July=Independence, Indy, Firecracker, Sparkler...but we were stumped when we came to discussing Thanksgiving. I joked that the only name that would work would be "Turkey." Then Keith thoughtfully suggested Mayflower, which I thought was quite cute, although a bit long for a dog. (Cats never come when called, so its not like naming them something long really matters...)

So despite the fact that Mayflower ("May" for short) became ours just after Valentine's Day 2009, we named her Mayflower because we thought that the name was cute, plus she's a Boston Terrier living in Boston. She is brindle and white similiar to a Pilgrim's coloring. The name's springtime affiliation suited her exuberance and sunny disposition perfectly--plus, being deaf, her name didn't have to be one or two syllables for calling her.

I must say that some days May inspires me. Despite her shitty human-inflicted start in life, she loves people. Loves everyone. Trusts people. Is grateful to us. People might say that's pretty "dog-like" but dogs that have been through a rough time sometimes don't recover personality-wise. That little personable joker's smile is sometimes all I need to lift the spirts after a particularly long day. And that, my friends, makes her worth every penny spent to obtain her, keep her healthy, and happy for the rest of her life in her forever home.

Labels: animal rescue, Boston Terrier, dog, Mayflower, pets