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Hi. My name is Angi and I have five dogs.

When you work in veterinary medicine, you never need more pets. But they just sort of . . . keep showing up. Often.

The last time I actually went looking for a dog was in 2006. I had a flip phone and I was taller than every single one of my kids. By a lot.

Frankie was a young, non-gray Basset hound. He was a stray dog, picked up by Animal Control. His owners were contacted, but they didn’t want him back. Yeah, you read that right. That’s a thing. I looked in the newspaper (did I mention this was +/- 3 eons ago?), found a dog, and went to get him. On purpose.

A couple of years later, Scooter came to live with us. It was supposed to be a temporary situation until his owners could find him a new home. But I’ll be darned if he just wasn’t the sweetest, most gentlest creature in the whole wide world and we fell in love with him and he’s gonna live with us forever and ever, amen. Accidental dog #1.

Then came Roxy. A coworker was walking her dogs when a young boy came up and asked her, “Do you want this dog? My sister brought it home and we don’t want it, so we’re gonna throw it out.” She picked her jaw up off the sidewalk, took the chihuahua and brought her to work the next day. We’re generally a bigger-dog type of family, so this seemed like a fun challenge. Accidental dog #2.

Next is good ol’ Barnabus. He’s Basset hound #2. I was getting ready to (finally!) graduate vet school and come home for good after 4 long years. My former boss texted me to see if I would consider taking him in. I asked what was wrong with him, because, well, who gives up a perfectly good year-old Basset? Her answer: “Their schnauzer is being mean to him.” My answer: “Schnauzers are dicks.” Accidental dog #3.

For those of you keeping score at home, at this point we are up to FOUR. DOGS. Four dogs. In our house. All the time.

And it’s manageable. Also, it’s pretty fun. Maybe we have lowered expectations for home cleanliness, disposable income and noise levels. We also had four children in six years and we were ok with that whole situation, but it’s entirely possible your results will vary.

Fast forward to December 20, 2018. Nice client who has been bringing Bow Wow to us for 13 years calls me to say he thinks it’s time to euthanize the dog. Long story short, it’s a difficult decision but they don’t think they can continue to care for him.

When they get to the appointment I ask if, instead of euthanizing, they would consider relinquishing him to me and I would work to find him a home. They agreed.

There were lots of tears shed (many of them mine) as goodbyes were said. After work that day, I took the old guy home where I could foster him, see how he did with other dogs, if he’s housetrained, etc. I mean, I gotta know what to tell people when the inevitable onslaught of potential adopters come knockin’ on my door . . .

Hey-o! Just a little rehoming humor there. Truth is, it’s real tough to find a home for pets of a certain age. But he was cute, and well behaved. I had friends asking around. So I had hope.

Within a couple of days, we welcomed Accidental Dog #4. Did I mention how cute and well behaved he is?

Hi. My name is Angi and I have five dogs. Which is a totally normal amount of dogs.