Pete, the Jack Russell Terrier.
As I stood out back at midnight in the brisk Pacific Northwest weather waiting for the pup to pee, I marked the event with a sigh. Why was I, the mother of five healthy, hard-working school-aged boys standing all alone doing this? Seriously. At the time I was homeschooling several, running a 3000+ square-foot hectic Grand Central Station household we had recently expanded from 1800 square feet (think remodel marathon), working out college classes for my oldest 16 year-old son (think major maiden voyage for this mama), traveling the globe speaking and networking while writing a book, keeping an Italian husband of 22ish years happy and now...waiting for a dog to do his job at midnight. Really? This is nuts. Time for a family meeting. There would be change, or there would be change...
My live-in adopted daughter/assistant, Cindy, from South Africa and I sat and discussed our dilemma with heavy hearts, knowing that the writing was on the wall. The boys adored our gorgeous little robust leadership-wired-constantly-moving-purebred Jack Russell terrier, but their lives were crammed full of so many, many activities, continual travel and leadership responsibilities along with their school commitments, home life responsibilities (yes, my house cleaning brigade), church work, music development, endless relationships...Petey was simply not fitting into our lifestyle. He had already demanded so much change (think 3K worth of fencing, vet bills, dog run, kennel, yada yada yada....) along with daily exercise and play and our APB's to search for him regularly since he constantly jetted out to find a new girlfriend, but our life goals were leaving him with the leftovers and it wasn't fair to him or to.......ME! (loud laughter)
Cindy and I cried many tears. Our tender hearts were broken for this soon-to-be-released ahhhhmazing dog. God made animals to crawl up into our hearts and take over, and Petey had done exactly that. Hubby had picked the champion from the litter and we knew it. He was just another awesome Mira man, but he was an animal and we had to face the facts. We prayed. Yes. Even for a dog. God cares about the little things and we asked Him for a perfect home for Petey. More tears. Too many to count. I contacted the breeder. She found it odd that we could let go of him, but to us, letting go was the greatest version of love we could express.
I felt utterly helpless and somewhat desperate. I couldn't bear to see this precious pup in the wrong hands. He was my baby after all. We met him long before we could take him home and he grew in our hearts and we nurtured and worked hard to care for him. He had to be in the right place.(stay tuned - to be continued tomorrow...)
