The Adoption Story

Tuesday February 3rd, 2009

We had been visiting the Oakland Animal Shelter since December 2008 in search of the "perfect" pooch. Elizabeth's ridiculous requirements were as follows:

- Odorless
- Cat like
- Does not lick
- Mellow but not lame
- Entertaining
- Excellently behaved
- House broken
- Not a puppy
- Not small but not big
- No barking
- Low maintenance
- No shedding

We had come across two "nearly" ideal candidates (which was determined through Petfinder.org and a 5 minute visit). However we were beat to the adoption by evil beings that were obviously not as perfect as us =). But it must have been fate that brought us to the shelter on this glorious Tuesday in search of two more candidates. Luckily we were being helped by a new volunteer who had no clue of where these dogs were being held. That is when we discovered a little brindle sweet beast. The other candidates turned out to be very young puppies and we proceeded, out of curiosity, to visit the little brindle (unnamed) beast.

During the first five minutes we witnessed a force of nature - he jumped, nipped, peed, pooped, ate grass, barked, smelled, and licked (however he was not small but not big). It was love at first sight. He proceeded to completely calm down after his wild streak and became and extremely sweet and affectionate guy (licking a lot)... we liked him!!!

We went home and discussed the possibility of adopting the medium sized, sweet, brindle candidate.


Wednesday February 4th, 2009

We hurried to the shelter after work and arrived around 6pm. We proceeded to visit the medium sized, brindle beast. The previous day we were concerned by the labeling on his information sheet which read "Pit X". Pit Bulls are one of the many breeds which are forbidden in our apartment complex. However a very knowledgeable and helpful shelter associate looked at him and determined he was no Pit mix but a Whippet mix ;) !!! His papers were corrected to more accurately reflect his heritage, and we signed his adoption. He was scheduled to be neutered and picked up the following Monday from the vet.

The next four days were spent gathering supplies, cleaning the apartment (?), doing research on dogs, and picking a name. After much deliberation we decided on a formal name for the brindle guy... "Makako". He was named after the Portuguese word for "Monkey". However we decided to nickname him "Maki" (yes, sounds like the sushi roll).

- Daniel