A Girl & Her Dog(s)

A sweet story about Havyn...It starts back when she was a tiny little thing: as far back as I can remember she has always loved dogs. Huge slobbery ones. Small bark-ey ones. Mangy homeless ones. It didn't matter to her what they looked like, or how intimidating they might appear, she would immediately run up start to coo over them & pat their heads, without so much as a trace of fear (sometimes much to her mama's chagrin!).

Her love of all things canine runs deep: we'd offered to dog-sit for friends of ours a month or two back (a big lovable black lab named Mozart), and even though he was only here for 24 hours, she dejectedly bemoaned his departure by woefully exclaiming, "Dog-gone. Dog-gone" for weeks.

When a friend of ours found a lost dog a few weeks back, and needed temporary lodging for him, I offered up our place (thinking, 1. the girls would love the chance to hang with a dog again, and 2. with all the lovely chaos we have going on at our house, what's a little bit more?). Havyn was beside herself with joy over the little guy, which had been dubbed "Po." Although friends helped us post flyers, and we'd posted pictures on Craigslist, Facebook & contacted all the local animal shelters we could find, we didn't seem to be getting any leads on Po's family. It was a puzzle; he was well groomed, friendly, gentle, intelligent, and had obviously been well cared for. I kept thinking that his owners must be distraught over losing him - but how were we going to find them?

One week turned into three, and Havyn settled into "life with a dog." Every morning her first words upon waking were, "Po?" She would start to giggle as soon as she set eyes on him and the rest of the day would be spent petting him, prattling to him, playing "tag" and romping around the yard with him.....She was in a canine paradise. Then, just a few nights ago, we got a call from East Can that they'd found Po's family. It was such an answer to prayer, but I worried that this might be a hard transition for Havyn.

Early the next morning we packed up Po and all his "things" and piled into the car to take him back to his original family. God had it so perfectly planned out. His owner, a very loving grandmother (to 3 little grandkids who had been desperately missing their "Boo") was overjoyed to see him again. One of her granddaughters is really close in age to my girls, and she offered to let us come over and play with her grandkids & Boo anytime we wanted to. She also said we could bring Boo back over to our house for an "overnight" anytime (and we offered to be his dog-sitters if they should ever need it). It was the sweetest thing. It helped so much that Havyn got to see where Po-Boo lives, and that she got to say "goodbye" to him. We're so thankful that Po has such a loving home: it made it so much easier to give him back! I'm so glad that we get to stay connected with his sweet family too - I think we're going to go visit him tomorrow. : )

Signing off now, but before I do, here's some pics of Havyn and her dogs... (it's actually a small sampling - this in no way captures the level of excitement she has over meeting them, nor does it accurately represent the actual number of dogs she has waylaid in order to lavish them with her adoration & affection):

And then there was Po. (Boo) : ) 

Here Havyn is telling her most favoritist story about how Po got out the door one time and ran away (which he did several times on our watch), and how she and her Deeda ran after him down the street ("running, running, street!") and called out after him ("Po! Po!") and finally, 7 doors down, caught him! ("catching, catching!") I think she tells it at least 3x a day. I love it. : ) 

Isn't that a great story? Havyn and her Po. Er...Boo. And how God "gave" her a dog even though we can't have one now, and then "gave" her the sweetest family to go along with him. Sigh. Our God puts together some pretty cool stories. And it touches me that He even cares about how much my little girl loves dogs, and went to all the trouble to put one in her life. Can't wait to see what story He's working on next!