Ellie's Adoption Story

Disclaimer: This post is my entry into the BlogPaws Blog Carnival Contest sponsored by BISSELL Homecare, Inc. I'm hoping to win it for my favorite shelter! 
 
I love telling the story of how I met Ellie because it was such an exciting time in my life.

I have been a dog-lover my entire life, and have never lived without a dog until I went off to college. Even then, I made frequent trips home to visit the family dogs. I was fortunate to move in with my sister and her dog during my Junior year, but knew that when I was close to graduating that I'd get a dog of my own.

Ellie quickly adjusted to her new home

The time finally came and I was ready to adopt a dog and I quickly learned that it was really difficult to find the type of dog I was looking for. After volunteering at a shelter for about 6 months and seeing dogs come and go (with whom I completely fell in love) I had no idea how hard it would be to find the dog that I would dedicate the next 10+ years of my life to.

I was on Petfinder.com daily, looking at dogs within a 50 mile radius.
My criteria:

• Female
• Young (around 3 years or younger) but not too young (preferably past the puppy stage)
• Short hair
• Medium build

One morning while I was interning, I was checking Petfinder which had become part of my morning routine, and I saw her. "Keiki" was what the shelter called her, and they included a YouTube video of someone petting her. In the video, she rolled over on the grass and let the person rub her belly. I was instantly in love!

Unfortunately, the shelter didn't open until 2pm so I had to wait a few hours before I could go there and snatch her up before anyone else could. I begged my boss to allow me to leave early that day and thankfully he allowed it.

When I got to the shelter, my heart was pounding. I was so nervous and excited to meet this dog, and hoped that no one else had adopted her already.

Well as you can see, the rest is history as she is here with me today, my little Ellie (I really couldn't put up with the name Keiki, and she had only been given the name a few days prior so I knew it would be fine to change it).

I delightedly shared my success story on Petfinder's forums a few weeks later along with a photo which has somehow made it onto their official Twitter background! How cool is that?!

Ellie is part of @Petfinder's Twitter background!