D-Day in Denver

Today was D-Day here in Denver … Dog Day for yours truly.

This is my new bff and roomie, tentatively named Jessie Annie:

She’s about seven months old and the guess is she’s a golden/lab mix (“glab”). She’s come all the way from Holton, KS, where she was picked up as a stray. As I understand it, a woman fondly referred to as “Kansas Betty” plucked her from a shelter as a “keeper” and arranged for her transfer to Denver’s Golden Retriever Freedom Rescue organization about two weeks ago. My app was approved a couple of days ago, and despite the huge snowstorm that hit the area late Thursday, I was able to get to GRFR’s adoption event today at Petsmart and pick her up.

Somewhere along the line in Holton, she received her rabies vaccination and was spayed. Her spay tattoo is a heart with a “J” in it, so after a quick Internet search I concluded she had been spayed by the Heart of Jackson Humane Society; Holton is in Jackson County. It can’t have been long ago; the coat hasn’t grown back over the the tattoo yet or over the shaved patches on her legs.

A lot of good people put in a lot of effort to finally deliver her to me today. My part was easy — driving about twenty minutes south and west on wet sloppy streets to get to Petsmart. Jessie’s foster mom came all the way up from far south Denver, where they always get more snow than we do on the north side, and she had about an hour’s drive, starting with the two feet of snow in her neighborhood.

The adoption event was fun, if a bit chaotic. Lots of goldens and golden mixes had been brought in by their foster parents from all over the area, and I hope many of them were adopted today. I’d forgotten how big a mature male golden can be. Beautiful, of course, but I was glad Jessie was smaller, more what I’d call medium-sized by comparison. A good size for me.

She’s been so sweet and mellow through this whole thing. Interested in everything, but not bouncing off the walls. She slept in the back seat all the way home. She’s barked only when we were outside and the dogs next door barked. She thought about sniffing things on the counter — once — and backed off immediately with one quiet “no.”

Actually, I’m still sort of “trying out” the name Jessie. She came to Denver with the name Sunny; her foster mom fudged on that by calling her Honey. Since it’s kind of up for grabs for the next little while, I’m trying to decide what I’d really like long-term.

Her spay tattoo is something I’ve not seen before but apparently it’s becoming more common. When a shelter or spay clinic spays an animal, they mark her belly with a tattoo of some kind, which saves her from any possible unnecessary spay surgery in the future if she strays or is lost or something, since spay scars don’t always remain clearly visible.

I thought if I was going to change her name anyway, I’d try a “J” name. The tat will probably be mostly hidden when her coat grows back, but I like knowing it’s there. It’s good identifying mark on a relatively unremarkable dog (but don’t tell her I said that). I’ll get her chipped, too. It’s cheap insurance for a big emotional investment.

It’s been a long day — especially since I made a second trip to Petsmart to get a larger crate. Jessie crashed in said crate several hours ago and I won’t last much longer. Of course, by then, she’ll probably be up and ready to go again. Ah, the joys of dog ownership.

P.S. I don’t know who took the glamor shots. I didn’t, and the GRFR foster mom didn’t (maybe the rescue folks in Kansas). They are the ones that were on the GRFR website.