Smallest to largest. L to R: Hercules, Roscoe, Kia, T-Bone.
This is not a very good picture, but I love what it represents. The hustle and bustle in my house since September, the peaceful co-existence of four large, goofy dogs. The way they all just seemed to fit together, their individual roles in the makeup of the pack. The way that three of the cats didn't come out from under the bed from September until just this weekend.
Kia got a home last weekend.
I have to remind myself when dogs like Kia come stay with me that I can't keep them all. T-Bone came along after Lady died and he just wrapped his big furry paws around my heart. The idea of keeping him crept into my brain and just wouldn't let me go.
Kia was kind of the same way. She is a special, sweet dog. Her former owner had brought her to a local veterinary office, asking to have her euthanized. He said there was something wrong with her legs and she couldn't walk. When the vet tech expressed incredulity and pressed him a little more, he burst into tears and confessed that he was having to move away because of financial circumstances and he wouldn't be able to take her with him. He'd had her since she was a puppy and she was his best friend and he just didn't know what else to do.
The vet convinced him to surrender her to the rescue and assured him that even older dogs do find loving homes. (Its true! They do!)
She was with me long enough that she became part of the house, part of the routine. She'd been to a couple of adoption days at the shelter but always came home. Saturday morning was just another part of the routine. Drive her down, drop her off, go back at four to pick her up. Big black dogs are always the last to go, no one wants to adopt big black dogs for some reason. No thought in my head that Kia wouldn't come back at the end of the day. Not until the shelter volunteer called me and asked if I had time to answer a few questions from a potential adoptive family.
Some fosters you can't wait to place and it seems forever until they finally find someone willing to give them a chance. Others you like well enough but when they're gone you're just happy for them. And there is a small, special group. The ones that when they finally do go, you cry. Not for them, but for you.
Its a little quieter here this week. No ball being dropped behind me on the chair as I sit here typing this, being chased and brought back and dropped again, covered in slobber. No circling of the dining room table, trying to get the cats to PLAY! just a little bit. No rubber bone being dropped on my feet while I sit on the toilet.
No Kia. (I always felt like I was calling her a phone when I'd tell her "No, Kia. No! Kia!")
She's got two girls whose beds she can sleep on all night long, but there is a spot on C's bed that is now empty of his nighttime companion. And there's a spot in my heart that is shaped like a big, black, happy dog.
I know she will have a good life with her new family.
But I will miss her.
