Hey Fools!: buster and me

This is long overdue, but I'm going to post anyway! A week and a half ago, Richie and I adopted a dog!

I've wanted a dog for a long time, and we actually moved into this apartment complex specifically because they allow dogs, but it never seemed like the right time. Richie was always crazy busy with school and I'm always busy after work with going to the gym and playing basketball.

Over the last several months, though, my mom would send me listings of dogs that were up for adoption that she thought we would like. We went to look at a Boxer a few months ago, but someone else adopted her before we even got a chance to see her. A few weeks ago, we went to check out a German Shepherd-Sharpei mix, but he got Parvo and we weren't able to see him.

Two weeks ago, my mom e-mailed me this picture of a Boxer (named Brown Sugar) that was available in Reno.

She was so adorable and she sounded pretty small and mellow for a Boxer, so we thought she would be a good fit for us! After some agonizing over whether or not we were really ready to get a dog, we decided to apply for her.

A couple of days later, someone from the rescue group got back to me and said that we had a really good application, but that there were already 17 applications for Brown Sugar and they were already in the process of adopting her out, so she was no longer available. Richie, my mom, and I were going to be in Tahoe for vacation in a few days anyway, so we decided to check out some of the other dogs they had up for adoption.

When we got to Reno a few days later, we were amazed because Brown Sugar was still there. She was really skinny because she was sick and had worms, but she was just as cute as in her picture. The rescue people said that someone else was already in the process of adopting her, but that it was first come first serve, so if we had all of the information they needed, we could adopt her!

So after a couple days of skiing, we picked her back up on the way home from Tahoe. We stopped at Petco and bought a bunch of supplies and we decided to call her Buster (despite my mom's misgivings about gender identity issues!). Buster seemed a little nervous, but as soon as we started driving home, she started to rest her head in my lap. After a few minutes, it progressed to her head and her front paws. Eventually, all 45 pounds of her were sitting in my lap -- what a sweetie!

We got her to my parents' house and she met Kaycee. She was a little nervous at first, but they get along fine now. After she made a poo, we realized she was still pretty infested with worms (so gross!!!), so we decided to take her to the vet the next day.

This post is already really long and I haven't even gotten close to the real part of the story yet, so I'll skip most of the retelling of our crate training issues the first couple of nights, but suffice it to say -- she did not enjoy being in the crate, and she pretty much let the whole Avalon apartment complex know about it.

The next day, we took her to the vet and it turned out that the worms were the least of our issues. The vet found a few lumps on her and recommended surgery to take them out. He didn't seem very up-to-date, though, so I got a second opinion with my mom's vet. She was much more on the ball, and wanted to do a biopsy, but in the end, she came to the same conclusion -- Buster needed surgery to remove the 4 masses.

Buster had the surgery 2 days ago and seems to be doing fine. The incisions are really huge and scary looking, but she's walking around pretty normally and doesn't seem to be in pain. The good news is that the cancer hadn't spread anywhere else in her chest, so her prognosis for that seems optimistic! The bad news is that she's still got some vomiting issues, and the vet is puzzled by that. Hopefully we'll be able to get it figured out soon, though.

Once Buster's fully adjusted to living with us and is recovered from surgery, I'm interested in seeing how her personality develops. So far, she's been a really mellow, sweet dog, but I think she's going to be a lot more energetic once she's healthy. She shows occasional bursts of energy and friskiness, which is a lot of fun. For the most part right now, her favorite thing to do is curl up on the couch with us and fall asleep, which is also really nice.

I can't wait for everyone to meet her. For now, here are some more pictures...