"It ain't nothing better than fallin' in love..."

After needing two full months between my first and second posts, my third post is coming in a full four months later. At my current rate, I’ll write my eight post sometime in 2021. Not exactly what I envisioned back in the spring when I thought about writing from time to time, but it’s an honest representation of the ebb and flow of life over the last few months.

Over the summer, I spent two weeks at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst during Annual Training with the 404th Civil Affairs Battalion (Airborne) in July, then traveled to Savannah, Nashville and the Dominican Republic in August for a relatively hectic mix of business and pleasure travel, and in September I started a new project with the National Association of Counties to help counties around the country to prepare for the 2020 Census (more to come on this).

The most important thing that’s happened in my life since the summer, however, was the decision my girlfriend – the wonderful Edisa Rodriguez – and I made over Labor Day weekend to adopt the new love of our lives, Chance The Rescue. Having never been the biggest fan of dogs for most of my 37 years, I went into the process of adopting a dog primarily with the goal of being a supportive partner. Edisa had long talked about wanting to adopt a dog and it was my job to embrace that decision. “Pick any dog you want, babe, and I will learn to love it,” I told her as we headed to the Saved Me Rescue Center. As we walked around the back to see which dogs we were interested in meeting, I noticed that one dog was sitting quietly and fearfully in his cage while the rest of the dogs were barking with nervous anxiety. We moved to the front room and the staff brought out a parade of dogs individually so we could meet them. They were all great in their own ways, but I didn’t feel strongly about any of them. If Edisa found a dog she really loved, that’s all that mattered.

And then they brought out the quiet dog. At the time his name was Luke. He was cautious, anxious and at eight to eleven months old, bigger than most of the younger puppies we met. He slowly made his way over to me, sat down directly in front of me and stared right into my eyes. Until this very moment, I can unequivocally say that I had never fallen in love at first sight in my entire life, but when I looked down at him and starting rubbing the back of his ears, it was a wrap. All of a sudden, I had to support Edisa’s process even though I was 100% sure that I’d found the dog for me and needed to convince Edisa that he should be the dog for us. After multiple trips to multiple Doggie Style Pets to see “Luke” again, as well as some other dogs, we decided to adopt him, scrambled to get approval from our landlord over a holiday weekend, and headed down to the South Street location to get our guy. When we arrived, he was out for a walk with another set of potential owners, but when they walked through the door, “Luke” saw us and walked right over. We chose him and he chose us.

 As cliché as it is to quote a famous poet that I’ve never actually read, this Anatole France quote rings true: until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened. Over the last 10 weeks, Chance has provided newfound levels of joy, frustration and affection. He’s helping me learn how to express my emotions more openly, become less selfish as I learn to prioritize and integrate his needs into my daily life, and appreciate small moments of happiness without worrying about all of the outstanding items on my “to do” list. The day we brought him home, I had to carry him up the stairs because he was frightened after a harrowing two weeks of moving from Georgia to an adoption center in Philadelphia to our apartment. Edisa and I were totally overwhelmed in those first couple of days; he wasn’t house trained, he wasn’t used to city life and we were not prepared for this new creature who was not only dependent on us, but relentless in his desire to be with us. We’ve all come a long way since then. Chance is house trained, responds to commands and feels very much at home in our apartment. We’ve still got some things to work on – any suggestions on how to get him to stop nipping and barking at people he doesn’t know would be appreciated! – but nothing that we can’t handle.

We settled on the name Chance The Rescue pretty quickly. I am huge fan of Chance The Rapper and we’d been listening to his latest album while were going through the adoption process. We took a “chance” on him. He is a rescue adoptee. Dogs with multiple names are awesome. It felt right and I can’t imagine calling him anything else. And I can’t imagine feeling this way about any other dog. Like his namesake says, “it ain’t nothing better than fallin’ in love.”