We adopted Cedar in February 2021. It was the middle of the pandemic and impossible to get a dog because apparently the whole world was seeking a “pandemic puppy”. For a couple of months it was pretty much a full time job for me, finding potential dogs on Pet Finder and filling in all the required application forms. Initially we had many criteria, but once it became clear that we might not be able to be so choosy, it came down to the following things – our apartment building in the city had a weight limit for dogs of 40lb and we wanted short-haired (so thankful now, hearing the grooming nightmares of friends!). Most applications (some even included donations) yielded nothing, then out of the blue in February I had an email from the Sato Project saying that “Bebe” as she was then called would be flying to the US on February 13 and were we still keen to go ahead with the application?
She arrived scared and disoriented by the flight and although she was happy to trust us straight away, she was quite shut down. She shook for most of the car ride and had to be carried into the house and onto the couch. The vet in Puerto Rico estimated her to be about 5 months old, she was not at all housetrained and was nervous about everything. We knew it might take her some time to decompress, so we canceled all plans for the week and “nested” down with her in our upstate home.
Adopting a rescue dog is something of a lottery. There’s no knowing what breeds or history the dog has beyond that which is obvious by looking, or information that has been given by the rescue agency. She was sweet-natured from the start. She loved to lie on the couch cuddling with one of us. She went into her crate easily at night and though unsure of the environment, she slowly started to get comfortable exploring our back yard. It wasn’t idea that it was the middle of winter, so there was thick snow on the ground and temperatures very different from what she must have been used to in Puerto Rico.