Meet Elmer, my new dog, a husky mix almost two years old. I adopted him from the Multnomah County Animal Shelter for $25 on a cold weekday morning in late December. When we first met in a yard, he was indifferent toward me and seemed scared and nervous. He’d been at the shelter for three months and was clearly shell shocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He didn’t want to get in my car, but finally, with some assistance by a shelter staffer, we got him inside and I drove him home as we listened to the jazz station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a deeply emotional moment adopting this dog. I had been dogless for almost seven years after putting down my beloved husky Sonny, my boon companion of almost 17 years, during a personal crisis of catastrophic proportions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought I’d never have the desire or wherewithal to have another dog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I showed Elmer around the house and yard. I fed him a meal and he devoured it. We took our first walk around the neighborhood and he pulled a bit on the leash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He has yet to make his unique howl that all huskies have. It will come in time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I celebrated my new dog with a good bottle of wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the morning, it was still dark and we walked for several miles. Three hours later, I took him to a fenced dog park and watched him gallop and play with a couple of dogs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My life will radically change with this dog. I am ready for change. I needed something to smash the stasis I’ve been feeling. Elmer the husky will certainly do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After orientation around the home and neighborhood for a couple weeks, I’ll take him to the beach. I am thinking Nestucca Spit in Pacific City, where I rambled with Sonny and Ray and Jo a thousand times. It’s time to reclaim part of who I was then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Meet Elmer, my new dog, a husky mix almost two years old. I adopted him from the Multnomah County Animal Shelter for $25 on a cold weekday morning in late December. When we first met in a yard, he was indifferent toward me and seemed scared and nervous. He’d been at the shelter for three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8693"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8696,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8693\/revisions\/8696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}