There's A Word For This!

A strange fate-like thing happened to us tonight!

Tonight, Dakotah and I walked to my friend, Julie's house. Julie lives just a few houses away, and we have been friends for a few years. Julie has a son named Tyler who is a little older than Paige, and a son named Connor who is a little younger than Paige.

Tyler has cerebral palsy, and Julie was the co-founder of the Special Families, Special Kids group with me a few years ago.

So, we're visiting, and playing with Tyler and Connor's new dog, Pepper, who is an 8-year-old Schnauzer who just joined the family last week.

Our dog, Oreo, died last May. She was 14 years old. We had her before we had kids. Oreo had a stroke one morning when she was home alone with me, and lost the use of her back legs. Poor thing was blind and deaf and didn't know where she was. So, we had to put her down.

At first, we said, "No more dogs!!!"

But, now we are softening to the idea a bit more. Wayne has his heart set on a Golden Retreiver. I like them too, except the shedding! But we've done a lot of research about the breed, and they make EXCELLENT family dogs, and would be wonderful with Paige.

Wayne's parents have a Shih-tzu, and he is definitely not the kind of dog our family needs. Paige is very nervous around him.

So, anyway, we are talking to Julie, telling her we'd like to get a Golden, and she tells us that someone she knows just gave one away. We are all like "awww...bummer."

We stay and visit for a while, and then come home.

As we round the corner to our house, we see this right in front of our house!!

Isn't that the strangest thing?!?!

So, of course, in comes the dog to see if it has tags on it. Paige LOVES it; isn't afraid, goes right over and loves it right up. The dog has some water, and we see it has a bandana on it.

We are pretty sure we know who's dog it, so after a bit of fawning, Dakotah and I go to see if we are right.

As we are walking the dog home, here comes a Mom and 3 kids walking down the street. They stop and look at us, but keeping going --its dark out, and we are a bit away from them.

I can tell they are looking, so I say, "Is this your dog?" As they are coming toward us, the kids are all saying, "Hi, Dakotah!" Dakotah says hi kind of hesitantly--she doesn't know who the kids are.

Then the mom leans over to the dog and says, "Dakotah!! Where have you been?!?!?"

The dog's name was Dakotah!!!!

Funny, huh?

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So, now we are all googly-eyed over this sweet dog...and although I was committed to naming my next doggie "Ruby", I think I can sense a "Penny Lane" or "Fenway" in our near future...