Sunday, February 9, 2014

Welcome Macchia!

Yes, we got a puppy! 
We have talked about a getting a dog for quite a while. As everyone knows, a dog is a lot of work, takes up a lot of time, and it never becomes independent. So we know it's a big commitment. 

We had been looking for a long time however there was always something that didn't work out with the timing. So we decided that after we returned from our Christmas holiday we would start looking seriously. 
We wanted to "rescue" a puppy instead of a buying a puppy that's a pure bred. We looked on sites like subito.it and bakeca.it which are similar to craigslist, but we also looked at ilcercapadrone which is a website run by volunteers who find abandoned dogs. Unfortunately this website has pages upon pages of dogs that have some sad story of abuse or abandonment, usually from southern Italy.  We  started to look daily. We also believe that some of the volunteers do this as a way to earn money and aren't very honest and don't treat the dogs well. We wanted to be careful in where our dog came from.

One day we finally saw a puppy we both liked, a two month female mut, so we contacted the volunteer. She seemed honest and to have good intentions. So it was a go - we just had to meet with another volunteer within the Bologna area since this puppy was near Napoli. 

We had an interview in our home to make sure that we were good people, who wouldn't mistreat the dog, or leave her locked up all day long and care for her. We were little bit nervous not knowing how passionate these volunteers are and if we said the wrong little thing maybe they would think we weren't good enough.  
The interview went well and she said that she would call the other volunteer down south immediately to give the green light.  However, we still had wait since she had worms and needed her second vaccination.  

We waited almost a month and we finally got the phone call saying our puppy would be sent up in a van on Friday night and would arrive at 8:15 am Saturday, February 8th. 

We were in the car on our way to the meeting point, which was an exit off the highway between Florence and Bologna when we received a text message saying they were running about an hour late. So we had to wait even a little longer! 
Finally the big white van arrived and there was a group of people waiting to receive their puppies. The van was full of all different kinds of dogs from puppies to adults, small to big, and even some cats. 

We asked for Macchia, which was the name given to her by the volunteer, and she was pulled out of a cage that had 4 other puppies in it. She was absolutely terrified. The poor thing has had a rough life so far and doesn't trust humans. We don't know exactly what happened, but we know she was found in a shed. 

She's slowly gaining her courage. She found her spot behind the couch and will come out just to eat. After day two she's added to her territory the seat of the couch. She is very timid and takes three tries for every move she makes. We have to keep her in the house for now, which is a little unpleasant for potty training, but she's too afraid to even go further than a 6 inches away from the couch so taking her out on the crowded streets of Bologna would be traumatizing. 

It's so much fun watching her explore our home and slowly shed her fear. We're definitely happy to have Macchia in our home! 

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