Bringing Miles Home!

In the last six months, my younger son began asking for a dog. He promised to do everything for that dog, if we would only get a dog. My husband, a real dog lover, was extremely hesitant about getting a dog. “Peepers, our cat, will go crazy if we get a dog,” he said. “And who will take care of a dog,” he said. My older son, didn’t really seem to care one way or the other if we got a dog. I am not a dog person. Never have been. As a mater of fact, I have always been a little afraid of dogs. But as I walked around my neighborhood and saw all of these cute dogs, I started wanting one too. My husband started caving in at the beginning of the summer, but he said I would have to do all of the research. So online I went. I knew that I didn’t want a puppy, too much work at the beginning. I knew I wanted a small dog, preferably some kind of poodle mix. They seemed so cuddly and cute.

Since I wanted a rescue dog, I started surfing lots of local websites. I learned that there are really two ways that one rescues a dog. The first is to visit a shelter, where you can look at the various dogs that are available. The second, is to be in contact with a shelter organization that saves dogs through foster homes. Karen at the Chicago Canine Rescue was great. She kept in regular contact with me about the various dogs that were available at foster homes. But it was difficult with our busy schedules to set up times to meet the available dogs. Janis, a foster parent at Adopt-A-Pet was also really helpful and supportive.

I started to feel that we really needed to visit several dogs at the same time to get an idea of what we were looking for. In the end we drove to Huntley, Illinois, about an hour and a half away from our home to the Animal House Shelter, a no-kill rescue shelter. Before we left, MJ, one of our most cherished friends, suggested that we make a list of what we were really looking for in a dog and write it down. She said that when we got to the shelter, we would fall in love with the cutest dogs and they may not be what we really wanted. It was great advice. Before we left, we had a good discussion about what we wanted in a dog and we all agreed that we would all have to agree before we bought any dog home.

When we arrived at the Animal House Shelter, we had a chance to meet several dogs that afternoon. The first dog we met, Cagney, was everything we were looking for – an adult poodle mix, who had lived in a home with one owner. He was perfect, except that when we were getting acquainted — Cagney ignored us. He walked all around the small room and would not go to any of us, he just wanted out the door. Cagney was so cute, we would have taken him in a minute. Luckily my older son said, “I don’t want another animal that will ignore us, like Peepers, our cat.”

Next came in two Jack Russel Terriers. They were literally bouncing off the walls. We were all in agreement, these were not the dogs for us.

And then Miles walked in (although his name was Dags at the time) and we were all smitten. He came to all of us and licked us and sat in our laps and just wanted to be loved. All four of us instantly fell in love, we were hooked. They told us that Miles was a corgi – beagle mix and that he had lived most of is life in a shelter. He was a little scared of other dogs and he did like cats (at least he had past their cat test.) Ok, so he would shed and we didn’t really know his history, but other than that, he was exactly what we were looking for and we all voted and agreed, let’s take Dags home. But we would definitely change his name and as we sat in that little room getting acquainted, Dags became Miles and we bought him home on Sunday, September 2, 2007.