carved angel

[radio|democracy now]

...$1200??

we spent all weekend looking for a dog. we've been wanting a dog for a while, but decided to wait and see if we still wanted one later. well, we do. the idea of fostering a katrina victim animal kind of set things in motion. we didn't get to foster an animal, as i'm sure i've mentioned. so we've been visiting the local spca. a lot. we found a dog we really liked on friday night. she's a golden retreiver/chow mix. she looked so much like a fox, with reddish fur and tufts on the side of her face. the name on her cage was lexie, but we called her kitsune instead, which is japanese for fox. though as we discussed her throughout the evening, we shortened it to kitsu. we didn't adopt her right away coz we kind of wanted a puppy, and we weren't sure she was the right size. our condo association won't allow us to have a dog over 18 inches tall. (no weight limit, though.) we went back on saturday, and she was still there. they let her out and we pet her and stuff, and asked the woman whether she thought, at 11 months, kitsu would get much bigger. she didn't know. but it didn't matter coz kitsu was over 20 inches. we had really been hoping we'd be able to adopt her, but we couldn't risk bringing her home, only to have to give her up when the condo association decided to be nazis. so we left, and spent the rest of the weekend looking around.

this past weekend was supposed to be petsmart's annual adoption weekend, so i called the four nearest stores to ask about the event. two of them said there would be puppies, and the other two said they would only have greyhounds. so i went to the first store and there wasn't one puppy there. the next day, we drove all the way to the north of the county, and the people scheduled to be offering animals didn't show. which pissed me off to no end. mostly because it was one of those operations out of someone's home, and we haven't been having a lot of luck with those people. these people keep all these animals at their houses, and foster out a few as well, i guess. they all want you to submit an application, to start with. then, they come and look at your house. that's okay, coz i wouldn't want an animal to end up in a bad home. but then they charge you way too much to adopt the animal (non-refundable, of course), and make you sign a contract which gives them the right to come back and inspect your home at any time they choose, however many times they like. um, no. i don't mind the initial inspection. i might not even mind them coming back after a few months to see how the animal is getting along. but there's no way i'm going to allow people i don't even know to just come over any damn time they feel like, with little or no warning. not to mention, the terms of the contracts i saw are often so vague, it seems like they could take your animal back at any time, without a concrete reason. i'm sorry, but once you've found me worthy of owning the animal, and i shell out $300 for it, the animal is mine. especially since i won't be getting any of my money back. and that's another thing. what if neko and the dog don't get along? neko was here first, so the dog would have to go. if i return the dog, they will be able to get the fee from whoever adopts it next. so why can't we get our money back? we don't have $300 to just throw around. and when one of these "organizations" is supposed to show up to an event that could help them to adopt out their animals to good homes, and they blow it off, it looks bad. it really seems like these places don't want their animals adopted at all. and it's really frustrating when you want a pet, presumably helping the animal in some way by giving it a good home, and it's a huge pain, with obstacle after obstacle.

so we still haven't found a dog. we've been to the spca and humane society so many times. there are never any puppies (aside from pit bulls - no.), which i'm totally willing to overlook. but there are no small dogs, either, and we aren't allowed to have a large dog. and i'm not even going to bother with those smaller organizations, coz i'm not entirely sure of their real motives. so then we figured, the spca doesn't need us to adopt a dog from them, since they obviously have no trouble finding them homes. (kitsu was gone when we went back on sunday.) so then we started looking at stores, to see what breeds we like. we were hoping to get a mutt from the pound, coz we aren't really purebreed people. but there weren't even any mutts available in the classified section of the paper. after looking around, we figured we were most interested in scottish terriers (we knew that already), mini schnauzers, and shiba inus. and these dogs ranged in price from $500-1200. and we didn't want to buy from pet shops anyway, since most of the dogs they sell are from puppy mills. so we looked through the classifieds again, even though i've read that "backyard breeders" are not the best place to get a dog from. but we don't have $1000 to spend. so.

we found some scotties advertised at $250. this was the lowest price i'd seen. so i wrote down the number for sohei to call today. i'm glad i got the number coz the ad isn't there anymore. i'm hoping she just paid for a week's ad, and that the puppies aren't gone. i'm also hoping the puppies, if still there, are healthy, and that sohei may be able to talk the price down a bit, since he's not willing to pay more than $150-200 for a dog. frankly, if the puppies are still there, i'm a little worried they may be sickly or something, considering the low price. of course, we can't afford a full-priced dog, anyway. i'm not entirely sure we could afford the dog for its current price. mind you, this is because after buying the dog, there are still tons of supplies to buy as well as food. we could spend $500 on a dog, but there wouldn't be a lot left over for supplies or medical costs.

anyway, it may be moot. sohei called a couple times and got her machine, so we don't know whether the puppies are still there. i assume she's at work, and i'm hoping we can reach her sometime this evening. i want a puppy sooo badly. it just doesn't seem to be working out so far. the biggest problem is that they're so expensive. i seriously wouldn't mind having a mutt, but there are none to be had. everyone claims their dogs are purebreed and want an average of $800 for them. i'm not kidding. and i seriously doubt these dogs are purebred anyway. not that i care, but i'm not paying that much for what is essentially a mutt. sorry. i guess, to be positive, the spay/neuter program must be working out pretty well, coz there doesn't seem to be such a thing as a mutt anymore, and finding a puppy is nearly impossible. i'm seriously beginning to think that we're just not meant to have a dog...