On August 9th, we headed to my mother's house at 7am because my boyfriend would have the car that day. My son packed a bookbag of snacks and a game in case we had to wait over paperwork. We arrived at the shelter at 11:45 and were only a little disappointed to see that Plant had been adopted before we could make it to his cage. We knew what we wanted: A small male dog that wasn't too small tht he'd be steppted on, who didn't bark too much, and absolutely loved kids. We looked at females, slightly larger dogs, and then....Poppy.
In the cage with 2 poodles, there was a little brown dog. He looked dangerously thin and had dandruff on his back, none of which bothered me. His tag said 4 years old, which made me think twice, but we decided to socialize with him anyway. First we took him out to potty. Then we socialized with other dogs, but finally decided that "Papi" (as his tag read) was probably the best we'd seen. We took him back out to a clean sitting area and set him on each other's laps to see how he'd react to his owner being touched and touching other people. This dog's biggest ttack was licking inside of our mouths! This is how we deemed "Papi" to be OUR dog.
I toted Poppy up to the font tdesk and filled out paperwork. The cashier called my apartment complex and talked to some lady who smiled and said we were denied adoption. The disturbing part is that she smiled even when my son started fighting back tears. When I asked why, she said my landlord said "No pets." I told her this was impossible because several of my neighbors have paid a pet deposit to have a pet. She tried to say they needed proof of the pet deposit, but I cut her off with "Why would I pay a deposit for a resident I haven't adopted yet?!" My mom stepped in to say that she had a large house with a large yard that our pet ould stay in until I had proof of the pet deposit, but they insisted that my mom could adopt any dog except this one.
There is no cell phone reception at Guilford Animal Shelter, so I drove down to Wendover Ave to find a signal and call my leasing office. Then I called maintainance's cell phone and our maintainance guy literally walked around looking for our manager for me. She told me, "I told them to release that dog to you!! Of course there is a pet deposit and we'll talk about that for you, but you most certainly can adopt that dog." She then called back the shelter to vouch for me. At one point, I over-heard the shelter reeptionist asking how long I'd lived there and what my pay history was. Seriously?? Almost 2 years and I've NEVER been late on rent. Good thing they didn't ask about my measly water bill that I always forget to pay or the constantly dieing Calathea Freddie on my porch. At the end of the crazy episode, the shelter staff were forced to approve my adoption. "You still can't take him home today. He needs to be neutered." the awful dream-crushing desk rep said. They scheduled his neutering for exactly 7 days later. Those days droned by slowly. I spent my time sharpening my son's school checklist, accepting my free gift of 30 (um, 23) days of pet insurance, and worrying about what kind of crap the shelter might try to pull to further prevent the adoption process for me.
On August 15th, we picked up Poppy with no trouble at all. I stood there holding him, asking every quick question I could think of. They assured me I could call back if I had any questions, which they forgot to mention would be answered with "Call your vet." I was handed a bottle of .25mg Doxy for Poppy's chest cold and told to give him a half tab a day. All of the pills were cut in halves and needed to be cut into a quarter pill twice a day. A large does at once could kill him, but nobody in the shelter told me that. After a good 3 days of Poppy having 5-7 watery bowel movements a day, I quit giving him the medication. I'd rather see him cough than go through dehydration! Poppy had actually been taking the Doxy since early July, so it had been almost 4 weeks. I know the average lengthy medication for dogs can take 4-6 weeks, but an upper respiratory infection should take 10 days of meds. The shelter represented the meds as though they had been administered for only 10 days, but his adoption paperwork had consistent longer dates. Poppy's energy increased within less than 24 hours.
Quick note: Poppy has been having these weird episodes at night where he sort of chokes or grunts like he's going to vomit and sometimes he does vomit. My picka-pug did something quite similar because of her short snout and maybe in part of her previous herneia. I am absolutely horrified every time my Poppy chokes and grunts like this in the middle of the night, but he'll go to the vet in two more days. Maybe he's just eating too fast?
I read other reviews for Guilford County Animal Shelter in Greensboro, Nc and noticed many people's animals were adopted after spay/neuter with upper respiratory infections. Is that common for shelter animals? One review in perticular was of a woman who purchased two cats. One died shortly after coming home and the other had a 103* fever and had to be kept over-night with an IV for a nice total of $550. This lady said a shelter rep offered for her to exchange her surviving cat for two new cats and that's the best they could do. I bet this shelter rep was also smiling. My neighbor across from me said that she adopted a diabetic dog from this shelter and they refused her any compensation, so she had to give the dog away and found a free dog from a person.
There was a lot of anxiety in adoptig Poppy. Of course I do have a story about my son after his birth that is quite similar. The human hospital judged me as homeless (thanks bio dad) until my OB showed up and said, "I've never seen that man in my life!" In life, anything and anyone worth having is worth working for. Instead of damning the shelter, I'm immensely proud that my apartment's entire staff went above and beyond to assure that we could adopt Poppy. This dog is surrounded by love like you wouldn't believe!
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