The story of Max

When we first found out we would be moving to the farm, I was excited because that meant I got to have a dog!  I've been begging for a dog since we've been married and Jon has been very firm on not wanting one.  In hindsight, he was right and I'm glad we didn't have a dog until recently. 

One Sunday, Jon and I were talking seriously about getting a dog and we decided to look in to some training books.  We went home from Target and were about to go to the library, when he called me into the office.  He just happened to look on the Nebraska Humane Society and found the one...an 11 month old German Shepherd puppy named Maximus.

Jon had decided we were either going to have a dog named Maximus or name our first born child Maximus.  Needless to say I'm very glad that we have a DOG named Maximus, which we shortened to Max.  We had also both agreed that we would probably have two dogs, one from the shelter and one German Shepherd.  We didn't think that we would be able to find any German Shepherds at the shelter.  I realized later that there are lots of big dogs at shelters because people don't have the time to properly train them.

We couldn't call ahead to reserve Max, so we had to drive an hour to Omaha and hope that he was still there.  He was still there when we got there, but the Nebraska Humane Society wants you to fill out paperwork so they can match you to a potential animal.  I was scribbling as fast as possible, so no one would take our puppy.  (I had already claimed him after one viewing.)  When I went to hand in my paper, a family jumped ahead of me.  They talked about all the little dogs that they wanted to see and at the end the dad said, "Oh and we want to see Maximus first." 

My heart just dropped.  I couldn't believe that we were one person away from getting our dog.  We went to meet with the adoption counselor, who tried to get us interested in other dogs.  But we weren't interested in other dogs, we just wanted Max.  At the Humane Society, they have meet and greet rooms where you can get to know the animals a little better.  We were literally in the next room over from the family who wanted to adopted Max.  And I could hear how excited the little girl was...

They decided to take Max outside and see how he did on the leash.  Jon and I were about to go look at another dog, when we saw him.  He was back!  Apparently, he was too much to handle on the leash for the little girl and the family decided against adopting him.  When he came in to meet us, all he wanted to do was show us his ball.  And that continues on to this day...if you every meet Max in person the first thing he runs for is a toy to show you.

So, in the end we got to take our puppy home.  And it's been an adventure since then...

Some day, I will have to talk about how we ended up in the emergency vet and the vet three times the first week we had him...and what it feels like to hold a bag under a vomiting dog...