On Friday night, takaza‘s mom brought over her new kitty, Bud.

From 2010_03_05 – Bud the Cat

He’s a sweetie with a terrible story: he was shot with a shotgun, but the vet was able to patch him back up although he lost one of his front legs. He gets around amazingly well and is healing up quickly considering it’s been less than a month. He’s a little purr box, and it’s great to see Dan’s mom with another pet in her life.

On Saturday, we celebrated genet‘s birthday! We went her and roho to Dixie Kitchen & Bait Shop in Evanston and had a really awesome lunch. I had a very tasty Southern Eggs Benedict with Creole Hollandaise. Dan’s Cajun Biscuits and Gravy were excellent as well! After brunch we stopped by Happy Husky Bakery because the guys there are so nice (and Ginger and Astaire, the titular huskies, are indeed happy and friendly!) and picked up a few items at The Spice House. From there it was down to Ruff House Pets to look at some of the dogs that New Leash On Life had at an adoption event. We saw some real sweeties (I was quite taken with Dug, who was indeed a true representation of the film Dug), but none of them that really clicked with us. So it was on to the next adoption event, this one at the Highland Park Petco put on by Castaway Pet Rescue.

Wow. I can’t say enough good things about Castaway. Kathy and Debbie clearly believe in the work that they are doing, but they also know that the more dogs they place in homes, then the more dogs they can rescue out of shelters with euthanize. We really liked working with them (and it was so refreshing after our last experience!) and it seems like we asked all the right questions. We met two dogs we liked, Merlin and Buddy. Merlin was a bit of a handful – very sweet, but headstrong and clearly a behavior “project”. Buddy really clicked with us, though, and after discussing it between us and with Roho and Genet we decided to put in an application for him. We celebrated by coming home and hanging out at our place, watching fun videos and getting Genet drunk 🙂 By the end of the evening I had two emails from Castaway promising to set up an adoption appointment with Buddy’s Foster family on Sunday.

This afternoon we met with Kathy from Castaway and the adoptive family, who live nearby. We met with Buddy (and their other dogs, including Tulip, an adorable – and huge – great Dane/akita mix) and chatted briefly. We double-checked to see if Buddy had any bad habits – trash-surfing, chewing, separation anxiety – and he was clean on all counts. We signed the adoption papers on the spot, and Buddy walked out the door with us. We stopped by Petco and invested in quite a few goodies (dog food, grooming stuff, harness, etc.), then came home. We took some time to take some pictures to show off our new cute family member:

From 2010_03_07 – Buddys First Day

I headed out again to pick up a few more things at Meijer and Petsmart, and to stop by Roho and Genet’s. They were kind enough to lend us Brianna’s crate since she isn’t using it (thank heavens because after pricing out crates…yikes!). We’ve been spending the evening relaxing and getting used to each other. He’s sacked out on a pile of blankets and seems very happy. We’ll be taking him to the vet this week for a check-up (it’s suggested in the adoption contract, and a good way to establish the relationship). We need to work on making sure he’s comfortable with his crate, too – that’s a job for tomorrow I think.