Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The power of luck

Two weeks ago the Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA had an adoption event. They invited a few other rescue groups and shelters, and I went with some of my dogs. They generally have a lot of visitors at those events, and it was a beautiful day so I had high hopes. However, as luck would have it, I didn't get much interest in the five dogs I took that day: Chance, Brady, Teddy, Frisky, and Filly. Perhaps it was such a nice day that everyone stayed home and mowed their grass. It's been raining almost daily around here and mowing opportunities have been few and far between.

Still, it was a nice event. We had a lot of volunteers come out to help that I hadn't seen in a while, including some former adopters, always nice to see. Brady was charming; he really works the crowd. Teddy was shy but got a lot of attention from volunteers and finally warmed up and got his confidence up. Frisky was uncharacteristically barky and Filly was just herself (more on her in a later post).

The real star of the day was Chance, who loves outings, loves people, and gives hugs to everyone who passes by. One of the VGSR volunteers met Chance at an adoption event in Gainesville a few weeks ago and may want to give him a try. She's looking for a new dog to train for therapy work and Chance does seem to have the temperament for it anyway. She likes big, goofy dogs, and won't be too fussed about a few household goods that may suffer in the course of his training.

Back to the matter of luck. I think that adoption events are pretty much always a matter of luck. It's a question of the right person coming along at the right time and seeing the right dog. It is hit and miss, but sometimes the payoff comes later. Last Saturday I went out with Animal Connections on their weekly Saturday outing at the Barrack's Road Shopping Center in Charlottesville. I took just Brady and Teddy. As luck would have it, a man happened to stop by the grocery store where we were set up. He recognized Brady from having seen him at the CASPCA event the week before. I gave him my number and his wife called that evening wanting to arrange a meeting.

I drove Brady to Crozet on Monday, met the couple and their 8 year old son, recently moved from Wisconsin. Nice folks and Brady is a nice dog, so they hit it off. I'm taking him to their place to do the adoption on Friday evening so they will have all weekend to spend with him. Wish us luck.

2 comments:

Re Runs (Kbg) said...

Yippie for Brady!!!!! How do you deal with saying goodbye to all of these nice dogs?

cnewell said...

I wish you and Brady all the luck in the world. He's wonderful and deserves a wonderful home! I'm crossing my fingers!