How I Met Cleo

I had returned from a month-long stay in Connecticut just in time to celebrate Joseph's birthday and to move into our new house. As we had agreed many moons before, it was time to start looking for a puppy.

We had been through all the questions. Well, all the questions we knew at the time. 'How big?' and 'What type?' We decided that we neither wanted a horse nor a rat. So, Great Danes and Irish Wolfhounds were out. Miniature chihuahuas and Papillons too. No yap yap dogs. Terriers weren't in our future. A good personality. That ruled out Poodles and Dalmatians. Still, we had a lot of breeds from which to choose. So we started looking.

We came up with a list of breeds we wanted. Pug (Joseph), Boxer (David), Husky (David), Cocker Spaniel (Both), Shar-Pei (Joseph), Bulldog - English or French (Joseph), Shiba Inu (David), Beagle (Both). After we made the list, we began looking for pure bred dogs on our list and discovered how much they cost. We proceeded to throw the list into the nearest lake.

It was then that we began looking at Petfinder and Craigslist. But it just didn't seem as easy to find a dog as it had been to find cats three years earlier. Most of the dogs were middle-aged, and we definitely wanted the excitement of a puppy. Well, that was a no-go.

We thus began our trips to animal shelters in the area. We went to the Seattle shelter first, and my heart sunk. I saw countless pitbulls with cropped ears and sad eyes. We wondered if we should just try to save one of those poor puppies. But the workers warned us that most of those pitbulls required significant training, and we weren't quite ready for that kind of load. We moved on.

We went to Kent and found saw a Golden Retriever mix that we took out to play. He was young enough, but also rather listless and disinterested. We weren't impressed. And there weren't many other options.

We went to Bellevue where we saw the cutest young black Cocker Spaniel. We inquired. Already taken.

We went to Paws somewhere up north and surveyed their facility. We saw an older husky mix named Rose. A beautiful dog, she had already given birth to a litter and therefore had dangling udders. We were willing to look past that little feature of hers, but we still couldn't get past the age. Yes, we were puppy agists. We told them that we would like some time to consider. They told us that we had a day. We never called back.

We went back to the Seattle shelter. We went back to Kent. We kept looking at Petfind and Craigslist. No luck.

Then the day came. It was a Sunday in late August when we set out from our house. Our destination? Bellevue. And then we had a few other shelters we were considering. Further away, but new, at least. We traveled down Bangor and took a right on Renton Ave S. We traveled down through Skyway and then past the airport. The road zigged and zagged a few times before we found ourselves on N 3rd Ave. At the intersection of N 3rd and Sunset Blvd in Renton, Joseph and I looked for a sign that pointed to I-405. There was none. I had looked at the directions before I left but didn't print them out. 'I thought you knew where we were going,' he said. 'I did too,' I replied. 'And I thought there would be some kinda signage to tell us where to go.' I turned right. I should have turned left.

As we slowly discovered that we were going the wrong way, we argued a bit before deciding that we'd just go to Kent and then double back to Bellevue. We wouldn't need to double back.

We arrived to a very animated shelter in Kent. The front lobby seemed to be teeming with people. We whisked past the people to the door that led to the dog runs. And in the first cage to the left was a litter of honey-colored puppies that couldn't have been more than a few weeks old. They were climbing all over each other and pulling at their makeshift multi-colored collars. I walked down further to find yet another group of puppies, darker in hue and equally adorable. But Joseph hadn't budged from the first cage. And so I made my way back. Joseph was putting his finger into the cage to the delight of the orange and red-collared puppies.

Joseph popped up, excited as he could be, and made his way to a volunteer. 'Can I see the one with the red collar?' 'Sure, just a sec,' she said as she finished with someone else. A few moments later, she came over and asked which one. 'The red collar,' Joseph said.

'I was looking at that one,' another woman declared from behind us. She had the kind of demeanor that might make you want to hit her car with a bat just because she was there. But this was too happy a day. And we weren't in the mood to argue. 'Can I see the orange one then?' asked Joseph. No one seemed to have secretly claimed that one, so Joseph and I took the little she-puppy into a 'visiting room'. Once in there, Joseph held her to his chest. And she, with her tiny claws started inching up towards his neck while whimpering ever so slightly. Yep, there was no doubt. She was ours.

We left that day without her because she needed to be neutered, but Joseph left early from work on the following day to retrieve our little girl.

The name? And no it's not Chloe. Nor is she named after Cleopatra. And, good God, no, she isn't named after Miss Cleo. In fact, her name comes from a disagreement that Joseph and I had after our visit with her on that Sunday. We were deciding when her birthday had been, the day she had actually been born. And if it were four weeks prior to the end of August, then it would have had to have been the end of July, which is Leo. But no, Joseph thought she was older and was actually a Cancer. So, we decided to combine the names.

And that's how I met (and how we named) Cleo.