It is soccer season and games are on Saturdays. Today would not have been an exception except that we had a snow storm and not only were practices cancelled, but the games were too, due to soggy fields.
With no plans in place, I decided to check the Dumb Friends League website and saw 10 lab/retriever puppies up for adoption.
We had promised our boys a puppy since last October and I've been keeping watch for one on various adoption websites. As soon as I saw the list of puppies on the DFL website, I rounded everyone up and we set off for Castle Rock where the center is located.
As soon as we arrived we parked next to a mini-van that had a mother and her 3 kids inside. We went to the front door of the center only to find we were 20 min early.
I heard a commotion behind us and the mother of the mini-van pushed her 2 older kids up the stairs and kept at shouting at them to stay in line. What line? It was only us at the front door and the rest of the parking lot was empty.
She made her way up the stairs with her 3rd kid in a stroller and then proceeded to tell me they'd been waiting in their car for 40 minutes because she didn't want to drag her kids out into the cold to wait at the front door.
I wasn't going to be my Christian self at that point and so I just talked to her in my friendliest voice about how we'd seen the puppies online and our first choice was the only black one (it was hers too). She kept hinting about being in the parking lot first and I kept being friendly but didn't move from my spot and didn't offer for her to go ahead of us. I don't think she was happy with me but I kept smiling at her and her kids to ease her pain.
Within minutes the parking lot was full of cars and there was a line down the stairs - all for the puppies.
As soon as they opened that center door at 10:30 am we were inside and at the check-in desk. We got to play with the black puppy within 10 min and we bought her right away.
I saw the mother and her 3 kids going into a consulting room and I smiled at her again when she walked by. I guess they also drove away from the center today with a new puppy, at least I hope they did because I was starting to feel a bit bad by then.
So we have a new addition to the family. She's black and is she's now part of an African family so we've named her ZULU.
