Cash Dash

I know the title is rather deceiving, since this post really has nothing to do with money or running quickly. I just wanted to talk about my little dog friend Dash, who was recently renamed Cash. As anyone who knows me knows, I spend some of my free time every weekend at the Lawrence Humane Society, taking pictures of adoptable dogs and posting them onto an awesome website called Petfinder. It's a huge database of over 200,000 homeless animals from 10,000 different shelters throughout the U.S. and Canada. You can search by breed, size, gender and age to find the perfect pet for your family! It's really a great resource!

So anyway, I spend around 3-4 hours at the shelter every weekend taking pictures, and then another 2-3 hours at home saving those pictures to my computer and uploading them with descriptions of each dog (there is an awesome volunteer who does the cat pictures, so I don't have to worry about them anymore). It feels like the most productive thing I can do to help dogs get adopted, although the staff doesn't ever make a point of telling me how many adoptions have occurred as a result. Every once in a while though, I'll hear through the grapevine of my volunteer friends that an adopter has traveled from Minnesota or Texas or Colorado or Iowa to adopt a dog they saw on Petfinder, which is always very encouraging and reassures me that my efforts are worthwhile. On occasion, I'll hear potential adopters at the shelter mention seeing a dog on the website, and it's always good to know that people are actually checking out the dogs (and cats) online before they come visit.

So last week, Chad and I were eating with a couple of my shelter friends, Amy and JoAnna. Amy was talking about how this guy came in from out of town to adopt Dash, whom he had never even met in person, but had seen on the website. Since Dash is an active young dog (the picture above is one I'd taken of him that was on Petfinder), we were all a little concerned that this person didn't know what he was getting himself into. These kinds of situations, where the adopter doesn't take any time to get to know the dog's personality, often end in the dog being returned a few days later because the adopter is overwhelmed with their new friend's energy level and/or personality quirks. Regardless, Amy said the guy seemed to like Dash a lot, so he signed the adoption papers and away they went to his new home.

So this week, Amy e-mailed me with an update and picture from Dash's adopter:

"Dash had his name changed to Cash, but all is going well so far...He's a wonderful dog who refuses to leave me out of sight, and loves attention. I've tried giving him a bed in the laundry room, but he cries out until i let him sleep on my bed. His first night here I awoke the next morning to a dog attempting to spoon with me, thankfully he's given that up and stayed to the end of the bed...Cash loves the frisbee, and plays well even at night, but that tennis ball stick is top priorty. I look forward to having him around for years to come..."

It just brings tears to my eyes! Happy endings like this one are what keep me going back to the shelter week after week! :)