Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. (I usually stop here when I copy the description…)

Historical photographs of any age or kind (they don’t have to be sepia) become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. (… but this week, I’m taking that “don’t have to be sepia” and “any age” to heart.)

I’ve been wanting/needing to write about our recently departed pet. After all, she was a part of our family and deserves to have her story told too. So I’ll take advantage of today’s prompt photo and see where it leads. (Non-spoiler alert: I succeeded in not going to the sad place today, so it’s safe to read on.)

Our family’s first dog was a sweet sheltie named Ginger. She died on the night of my son’s high school graduation while he was at the senior lock-in and I was a volunteer mom helping out. In the picture below, you might recognize my mom from last week. The boy holding Ginger is the future graduate.

After Ginger died, we were all so very sad and my husband wasn’t convinced that we should get another dog. Our youngest daughter had already been nagging us for a puppy before Ginger died, so she kept up her online search of rescue puppies. My son said if we were going to get another dog, to please do it before he started college so that he and the dog would have time to know each other. I got onboard, but I kept looking for shelties to rescue because Ginger was such a sweetheart.

My daughter found a young poodle online that looked like a good candidate, so I called the rescue group about him. The rescue group had a “meet the pups” event scheduled, so we went to meet him. Unfortunately, we just didn’t “click” with Freeway. We sat there on the floor with a room full of dogs and people hoping to make a match. Our match was not there.

A volunteer came over and sat with us. She had questions:
Had we had a dog before?
Did I work outside the home resulting in long periods of time with no one at home?
Did we have other pets?
Were there younger children at home?
Yes. No. No. No.

She called to another volunteer to join us and told us that there was another dog that they had not yet made public because she was so young. They were looking for the right family for her. Would we be interested in meeting her?

Why yes, since you think we are the perfect family!

She told us that she was fostering the little puppy in her home. A sixteen-year-old girl bought the puppy for $200 out of the back of a pick up. When she got the puppy home, it wouldn’t eat. The girl and her father took the puppy to a vet who told them that the puppy was too young to have been separated from her mother and needed to be bottle fed. The dad convinced his daughter to relinquish her and that’s how the puppy ended up with the rescue group.

We arranged a time for the foster mom to bring the puppy (a poodle) to our house so we could meet her. We fell in love with her tiny cuteness. The foster mom bragged about how smart she was. She was so young, but had already learned how to use the doggy stairs to get up on their couch! Her husband worked at home, so he spent hours holding the puppy and was really attached to her. They had given her the name Zsa Zsa.

Zsa Zsa sounded like she might already be a wee bit spoiled.

By now, Zsa Zsa could eat solid food so we arranged a two-week trial adoption. My daughter and I drove to the nearby shopping mall where we had agreed to meet the foster mom in the parking lot by Sears.

Zsa Zsa seemed excited to see us, and the foster mom was sad to see her go because she had become so attached to her. She left us with a pink fleece blanket and said maybe it would be a special blanket to her. I vaguely remember meeting up with the foster mom at an emergency vet not long after – I don’t remember the circumstance – and her former mom brought a toy for her.

Zsa Zsa was so tiny (1.6 pounds if I remember correctly), that I went all around the house and yard blocking spaces that she might slip into or out through and get into trouble. The space between the refrigerator and the wall. The space between the gate and the fence. The spaces in the wrought iron gate. The space between the piano and the wall. We kept a close eye on her outside because she could have slipped between the spaces in the chain link fence and I could imagine a big predatory bird flying off with her.

The foster mom told us that Zsa Zsa slept in a crate at night with no problem. I think she lied. Zsa Zsa sure put up a ruckus when we put her in her crate that night, carrying on and on and on. My daughter wanted the puppy to sleep in her room, but when she got no sleep, we put her in our room the second night. My husband couldn’t take it, so he took her out of the crate and put her in bed with us. I was not pleased. We did sleep, though.

The name Zsa Zsa didn’t really fit her personality. Too frou frou, we thought. We tossed around names for a couple of days and finally settled on Lola.

Lola was never reserved or shy. She believed everyone should know and love her. It was her life’s purpose to make it so. She loudly proclaimed her desire to love and be loved every time someone new entered her space.

Lola was so young when we got her that she had not been vaccinated. The first time I took her to the vet there were quite a few people and pets in the waiting room. I did not want her down and exploring since she hadn’t had her shots, so I kept her on my lap. Lola made a lot of noise. It was embarrassing. When we were finally called back, the vet tech said, “She sounds like she is in pain. I should get the vet to check her out.” “No,” I assured her, “She just wanted to get to all of the people in the room. She’ll be fine now.” Lola had stopped wailing and focussed her attention on the vet tech, confirming my diagnosis.

As Lola grew, she began to get shaggy and needed grooming.

I took her to the groomer we had used for Ginger. When I picked her up, the groomer suggested that we be very regular with her grooming so Lola would get accustomed to it. The second time I took her, the groomer called me to come for her before she was even finished. I knew she wanted Lola out the door as soon as possible. Obviously, the groomer was not a fan of Lola’s loud protests at being crated and wanting attention. Also, I said something about Lola being a poodle. “This is no poodle!” she said with disdain in her voice. “I breed poodles and this is no poodle. This is a bichon.”

We never went back to that groomer.

Zsa Zsa the poodle was now Lola the bichon.

And the man who thought we shouldn’t get another dog was smitten.

Just like Zsa Zsa’s foster father before him, my husband spent a lot of time holding Lola and became very attached to her.

We signed the adoption contract on October 28, 2007.

We were a match.

Dog tales, I’m guessing, at Sepia Saturday this week. Walk on over and meet a few more of man’s best friends.