As my fellow dog-lover friends know all too well, not having a dog in your life can be tough sometimes. You get so accustomed to having that unconditional love and companionship to be a part of your every day lives. It is true that it's a huge responsibility, but once that responsibility becomes part of who you are, there is definitely a void there when it is gone.
All that said, even though we have missed Rani and having a dog like no other, bringing a new dog into our lives now doesn't really make much sense. We travel regularly, for one, and we have many other factors going on in our lives that make bringing a new puppy or a young dog into our lives less than optimal. So, we had decided that we would wait until we move back stateside before looking into adopting our new friend.
That's when a great opportunity presented itself, and Big R and I couldn't turn away. Despite my tiresome mantra of "we can't get a dog right now, we really need to wait" I felt myself dialing a number to inquire about a dog. But this isn't just any dog. The facebook posting said, "do you want to adopt a war hero?" The military has a whole troop of working dogs that assist Soldiers in their duties all over the world. Those dogs work hard, and then they retire and need a loving home to retire to. That's where we step in...
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| He immediately felt like part of the family |
This particular dog was trained for explosives and has been in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Lando has lived in Germany most, if not all, of his life, which is now 11 years. It's true that adopting an 11 year old dog might seem crazy to some people, but to us, we couldn't think of a better way to bring a dog back into our lives. He's healthy, agile, active, and friendly. His favorite thing to do when he's not working is snuggle up on a couch.
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| Big R learning some commands - Lando is trained better than we are! |
We were excited to meet Lando to see if he and the situation was as wonderful as it seemed. And this dog was exactly as we had hoped. He's definitely an old boy, but his friendly and immediately took to little r. He ran the agility training course like it was nothing, and his training is, of course, impeccable. The decision became easy. Big R and I looked at each other and we just knew this was a good fit for our family and for Lando.
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| little r and Lando were instant pals |
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| Lando running up the tripod stairs with ease |
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| jump the barriers? don't mind if I do! |
Because Lando belongs to the government, we have to go through some paperwork and review for approval of the adoption. The MPs had all of the paperwork on their end completed, so we just needed to fill out our requirements and get things handed in so that the review process can begin. The only challenging piece on our end was getting written approval from our landlords. They don't speak a lick of English and my German is torturous at best, so I had a feeling it was going to be interesting. Interesting or not, I ended up with a signed letter in my hand last night - we are on our way!
The review process can take as long as 4 to 6 weeks, but we are hoping it will be much quicker than that this time around. Hopefully just after Thanksgiving we'll have a snuggly new member of the family. We can't wait!
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