Our family has grown by four spotted feet.
Meet Iris.
Iris is a three year old Dalmatian.
A few weeks ago Iris was living in Chicago. Sadly, her mom could no longer take care of her, so Iris went to stay with a foster family in Indiana and was placed on the Dalmatian rescue list. We've often discussed adopting a third dog. It wasn't all that long ago that our house was home to three wonderful dogs. After we said goodbye to Diamond we weren't ready to think about bringing in anyone new, but a year or so later we started to talk about the possibility of adopting again. We knew we wanted a rescue—that seemed like the greatest way to honor Diamond's memory—and we started watching rescue lists. We thought about a greyhound, and we thought about a mix, but I have a soft spot for spots and I probably watched the Dalmatian list the closest. Still, it took a couple of years before the right personality popped up.
I responded to Iris's listing and spoke many times with her wonderful foster family. It was clear that they cared very much for her, and we were very lucky when they chose us to be her forever home. This morning they drove two and a half hours to meet us in a field half-way between our homes. It was a poignant exchange, with sadness in their goodbye but joy in our hello, and then our lives became four feet richer.
Iris spent the drive home sleeping, and the first afternoon in her new home exploring every nook and cranny before settling down in front of the warm fire. She gets along with our dogs, she ignores our cats, and she's already found the water dish, the "out" door, and the bed by the fire. She's making herself at home and settling in just fine, and that makes us very happy.
