When we moved to Georgia in 2005, we had a small, fenced yard and were surrounded by neighbors and friends with dogs. I had never had a dog growing up and didn't really think I wanted one either. I grew up with cats. I don't think I really love cats now either. I'd rather go on a poo-poo scavenger hunt in the back yard than dig through dusty, smelly, nasty cat litter. Which reminds me of my friend Gene who says things like "That's about as good as being face-down in kitty litter". I love Gene and his funny sayings! Anyway, in Georgia, Matt started doing research into breeders in the area looking for a lab puppy. I was about 4 months pregnant with Tucker and I told Matt that if he wanted to get a dog, he better do it before we had the baby. I knew I'd be too overwhelmed to commit to a dog after the birth.
Matt came to me one day and said, "Let's just go 'look' at the humane society and see what kind of dogs they have there."
Now, if you've ever been to the humane society, you know how hard it is to just "look". I'm not sure how you go there and not come home with 5 dogs, 3 cats, a bird and really feeling guilty about all the other animals you left behind. It's a sad place, really.
So we go "look" at the Muscogee County Humane Society just outside Columbus, GA. We saw several dogs, but there was only one dog that we really wanted. There was also a mom and her son looking at our dog at the same time. We decided to move fast, get a helper and get him out of the cage and with us before they could. The thing that we loved about our dog from the beginning was that he was the ONLY dog that wasn't barking at us.
We decided to take him home on the "foster program" where you can take the dog for 3 days, no charge, to see if the animal fits into your family. We took him home and introduced him to all the kids we knew and pulled his tail while he ate to see what kind of tolerance he had for kids. He was PERFECT. Well, there was one little thing....the humane society had named him Alfalfa. What? What a horrible name. Matt wanted to rename him Bo and I had a small problem with that. My dear friend Angela had a yellow lab named Bo and he was a total disaster. Once he cornered me and well, "touched me inappropriately"...is that how you say it nicely? So I was hesitant to name him after knowing what kind of consequences that might carry. But...we did it anyway. We named him Bo Muscogee, named after the county we adopted him from.
Our next duty station was Fort Polk, Louisiana where we conveniently moved to Beauregard Parish. I immediately thought Bo needed a legal name change. After moving to LA he became formally known as Beauregard Muscogee. At that point, we were hoping to move to Fort Lewis, Washington and I joked that the more duty stations we did, the more names our dog would accumulate. Thankfully, we have made our final destination Portland, however Bo has not adopted any further names based on our physical location...although Beauregard Muscogee Washington Glem sounds pretty regal! (We live in Washington County)
Like I said before, I was never supposed to love this dog. But I knew I'd fallen for the mutt when he ran away in Louisiana (one of many times) and I was standing out in the middle of our street around midnight, in my pajamas, crying because I couldn't find our dog. Who's the sucker now? Me.
I was never sure I'd love that dog. We did the "foster" program for a weekend and when we had spent a few days with him, had decided that this was the dog for our family. I went to the humane society and paid our adoption fees and he was all ours. Later that night, we went to an Army function that lasted less than two hours. When we got back, Bo had chewed up about $600.00 dollars worth of electronics and my sunglasses. We lost my cell phone, which I used for a few weeks while I tried to get a new one...dog bite imprints and all. The cords to our portable DVD player were shredded. The DVD player itself didn't survive. I literally had to sweep up my sunglasses and phone off the floor. It was NOT a good day for Bo. Had we made the wrong decision?
After taking him to the vet for a routine check and vaccines, they asked me how old our dog was. I told the vet what the humane society had told us, one and a half years old. The vet looked at me, smiled and said, "I don't think he's quite that old." She said his teeth indicated that he was approximately NINE MONTHS old! No wonder he's chewing stuff up, he's a 70 pound PUPPY!! The only thing I could do was smile and hope he wasn't going to get significantly bigger. The vet said he was probably born sometime in December or early January and that we could just pick a day to be his birthday. So we decided to go straight down the middle and call it December 15th. Little did we know that Bo's little brother, Tucker, would be born so soon after that!
Beauregard Muscogee has been an awesome addition to our family for the last 4 years. I have learned to love dogs, well at least ours, much more than I ever thought possible. Happy Birthday Bo! We love you BoBoLicious!
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