Ha! I love telling this story. Please forgive me. My sweet Tizzie went to the Rainbow Bridge in January of 1999. She was almost 15 years old. I took her passing much harder than I expected. At age 3, things were starting to settle down with Hannah The Horrible Puppy, but we were going to be one dog family now. Yet after 5 months I started to feel like something was missing. A feeling washed over me that I should give an unwanted dog a home. I was quite anxious about it because I wanted the new dog to relate well with Hannah and also to bond with me. Was it possible for grown dog to do both? Being new to the internet at the time, I started to surf various shelter and rescue websites. I didn't even know what kind of a dog I was looking for. There were so many animals and I was so confused and anxious. All I knew for sure was that I wanted a female. I did a lot of praying that we would find the right dog for us. My husband, who had finally accepted the fact that we were getting another dog, started to tell the people at his work about how we were looking for another dog. One of his co-workers came up to him one day and said that they had adopted a dog from the animal shelter six weeks previously for one of their daughters, but that the daughter was going through some problems and she wasn't taking care of the dog like she had promised and they were going to take the dog back to the shelter. The lady said they felt kind of badly about doing that because it was a nice dog. Did we want to see if we might want it? The dog was a cocker spaniel and a male. I had never really been interested in a cocker and didn't want a male, but there was no harm in looking and at least we could see how Hannah would relate to another dog. We told the lady she should bring the dog over to our house and we would take a look. When she came and opened the door to her van, out jumped a beautiful tan and white cocker - the same coloration as Hannah as well as the same height. When he stopped to go potty on the grass, he squatted like a girl dog. When he came into the house he did a spring jump into my lap and gave me lots of kisses. Hannah and he, although not instant friends didn't act like they would kill each other either. The lady asked if we would like to keep him for the weekend, no obligation, and then make a decision if we wanted him or not. As she left via the front door, the dog didn't even turn to look in her direction. We went about our activities and prepared dinner, "Buddy" was relaxed and acted as if he had been in our home all along. It was only a hour or so, when I suggested to my husband that we needed to go to PetsMart as there were lots of things I needed to pick up for our new dog. I took Buddy (soon to be Tucker) in my lap and told him that I wanted him, not just for the weekend, but forever. Yes, there were hurdles to cross - extreme separation anxiety - and lessons to learn - at approximately 2.5 years old he didn't even know "sit", but he is truly an example of prayers answered. He needed a home and he was the right dog for us.