Welcome to the second installment of Furbaby Friday! I blogged about my crazy dog mom habits a few weeks ago but I realized I haven’t really introduced you to our furbabies. We have two dogs, Lyssa and Levi, and we love them like they are our children. Lyssa is 5 years old and Levi is 1, and since I shared the story of me and Chris, I figured I should share the adoption story of each of our dogs. Lyssa is up first!
By now I’m guessing you have figured out that I am obsessed with dogs. So it should come as no surprise that when Chris started a second shift job in the spring of 2012 and I was home alone in the evenings and nights, I immediately started convincing him we needed a puppy. “Need” being the key word here. For protection, of course. He wasn’t completely on board, but we agreed that I would keep an eye out for a German Shepherd puppy that needed a home. In my mind “keeping an eye out” meant obsessively checking PetFinder.com every day to see if a new German Shepherd puppy was listed. After a few weeks there was a female German Shepherd puppy that I thought would be perfect so I showed Chris and he reluctantly agreed that I should email the rescue to see if the puppy was still available.
A few hours later the rescue emailed me back that she had already been adopted. I was sad, but Chris assured me there were other puppies out there and this obviously wasn’t meant to be. A few days later, the woman from the rescue emailed me and asked if I was still interested in the puppy. I said yes we were and she informed me that the puppy had been returned to the rescue and we could fill out an adoption application if we wanted. At first this was a red flag to me and I thought something must be wrong with the puppy, so I asked for more details. The woman from the rescue told me that the puppy had been adopted to a young woman who got her as a surprise for her boyfriend the day they moved in together. Guess the boyfriend wasn’t quite on board because they returned the puppy to the rescue. I felt better after hearing that so I went home to talk to Chris about the new development. We agreed to submit an adoption application and see what happened. We were approved the next day and made arrangements to pick up our puppy that weekend. I was SO excited!
All week we brainstormed names and went back and forth, and finally decided to name the puppy Lyssa. We drove over an hour to pick her up and it was love at first sight. She was such a beautiful puppy and she ran right up to us! Knowing Lyssa the way we do now, that is highly unusual. She takes some time to warm up to new people but she must have sensed we were her family because she didn’t hesitate one bit.
That was 5 years ago and Lyssa has truly become a family member. We love her like she is our child and she has been with us through good times and bad times. She is a sweet, sensitive girl and she is also loyal and protective of our family. Lyssa was my constant companion when Chris worked far from home. She slept with me every night (still does) and I slept soundly knowing she was there. She has licked countless tears off my face over the years and she somehow always knows when I am upset. Whenever Chris isn’t feeling well, Lyssa will literally lay her head on the pillow with him.
She is so goofy too. She loves squeaky toys, running the fence with our backyard neighbor’s dog, and laying outside in the middle of a 100 degree day. She gets so excited to go to doggie daycare (she goes once a week) and she loves being around babies.
I still email the woman from the rescue once a year around Lyssa’s birthday to update her on how our girl is doing. She loves hearing the stories and I love sharing them. I want to make sure she knows how much Lyssa has added to our life.
We love you Lyssa girl!
Alyssa Alley
This is fantastic! And of course I’m partial to it because my nickname is Lyssa and I love German Shepherds!! But truly beautiful article. Fur babies really do add so much to our lives and they really are family members!
AMorgan16
Thank you so much Alyssa! They really do add so much to our lives and I’m so glad you enjoyed the article!