Minka's "Furever" Home

Well friends, today has been an emotional, but great day!! The day started out by me waking up drenched in tears. I had a nightmare about Minka being adopted by people who seemed to be saints, but ended up abusing her.

I realized I never told the story about Minka so here goes... After the loss of Sophie I wanted to do something to help other dogs. I've always told myself that when I get rich (ha) I'm going to build a dog ranch and rescue every unwanted/abused/neglected dog in the whole world. Since I'm not rich yet and we were used to having three dogs, I thought I could help one at a time by fostering! Genius!....ha

When we first decided to become foster parents I just assumed that the dog we were given would be adopted before we became too attached. On the other hand, I was fully aware that when given Minka as our first foster dog, it might take a little longer for her to find her "furever" home because of her handicap. I was thinking a month, maybe two? We've had Minka since March...

During the last 6 months I have tried my best not to get too attached because I knew it would be extremely hard when the day came that I had to give her up. The first couple of months I prayed for a good home for her. I told friends, family, and co-workers about her hoping they would spread the word and a wonderful, good hearted person would come along that thought her funny looking legs and under bite with one tooth sticking out was irresistible. The last four months or so, however, I've dreaded every time I had to take her to adoption events or see her on adoption websites. I even cringed every time I saw Kandy's (the owner of the rescue agency) name show up on my phone thinking that she may be calling to tell me that Minka has someone interested in her. This happened a few months ago. She texted me and told me there was a lady interested in adopting her. I cried my eyes out for 30 minutes... Obviously, she changed her mind, thank God. This happened back in May and from that moment I knew I was in a HUGE predicament. I kept trying to tell myself that if I didn't find her a home I wouldn't be able to help any other dogs. That worked for just a little while.......
I've wanted to talk to Levi about my "predicament" for months and the fact that I wanted to keep Minka, BUT I was afraid of his reaction. I feared he would say "absolutely not" and then I would be in an even bigger predicament.

Back to my morning of waking up from my nightmare. You know those dreams that are so real that it seems like it really happened?? Yeah, my dream was one of those. I couldn't stop crying! It was horrible!! My dream was the straw that broke the camels back.

Minka isn't going anywhere.

Levi left early this morning before I woke up to play golf so I texted him and told him I wanted to adopt Minka. I couldn't even wait til he got home. He said ok and that he felt as if she was already ours anyway. (More tears..) Then I texted Kandy and asked her what I needed to do to adopt Minka and she told me. (And more tears...) SO, Minka is no longer a "foster dog." She's ours.

Everyone told me from the beginning that I was going to get attached to her and not be able to give her up so I'm expecting a lot of "I told you so's." Oh well...