The Bonus Jonas of Dogs

Hello, Cruel World,

Okay, those who are sharp-eyed and attentive when it comes to my blog (and I am guessing that there is no one who is paying that much attention, which is fine, since I'm not paying attention either) will have undoubtedly noticed that my title had changed.

See, it used to be called Three Dog Life, because I have three dogs, see. But over Thanksgiving, a miracle occurred. One of the dogs (inspired by the neighbor's chickens) reproduced parthenogenetically, and we found ourselves with a new puppy. Science has been beating down our doors ever since and we're going to be on Oprah with Jonathan Frazen and on the cover of Nature.

Okay, not really.

What really happen is that we heard about a shelter in the eastern part of the state that was planing on euthanizing all of its dogs before Thanksgiving. We got involved with a rescue group who decided to find foster families for as many dogs as they could. We've only tried to foster once before -- with Medium Dog -- and we wound up keeping him. But this time we felt strong. We could take a dog, care for it, and help it find a forever home.

We got a picture of Bonus Dog before he arrived. He looked detached and angry. We also got some info: adult male hound, 45 lbs. The rescue van went and fetched him and a bunch of other dogs and brought them to Santa Fe. We went to pick Bonus Dog up. It was dark. We couldn't really see him. He was confused and scared. He was even more confused and scared when we put him in the car with us.

We got him home and brought him inside. He was not an adult -- he was a skinny 6 month old puppy who should have weighed 45 lbs but weighed only 35 lbs. And he looked like a miniature clone of Big Dog.

The first night was rough. Big Dog was scared of Bonus Dog. Small Dog had some sort of nervous breakdown and had to take a Xanax and go to bed early. Medium Dog turned into a snarly fiend. Bonus Dog proved his houndness by howling half the night.

But by the next morning, all was well. Small, Medium, and Large Dog acted like Bonus Dog was their long lost friend. Everyone went for walks. Bonus Dog proved to have a really sweet personality. He walked around the house with a big goofy dog smile on his face and a long wagging tail (and I mean long - if this dog grows into his tail, he's going to be the size of a Shetland pony). He gave us lots of hugs too -- hugs before he went out in the yard, hugs when he came back in.

And we discovered that we are not the kind of people who can take in a sweet, skinny puppy and then give him to someone else. We're keeping him.