Finally sharing the story of adopting Duke…

 

As most of you guys already know, WE ADOPTED DUKE! He’s a wire fox terrier mix and we are so in love with him. We have talked about adopting a dog for a LONG, LONG time and finally decided to go for it! Since we just moved into a much bigger place we felt we had the space and were financially stable to commit to raising a dog and a bunny at the same time. As I basically already knew, adopting a dog is pretty much the same finding your dream apartment in NYC. It’s tough and a very tiring process, and usually works best if you don’t already have something set in your mind that you want. Otherwise you’ll turn up pretty disappointed and in tears.

I had been looking at so many different sites and Instagrams and noticed that some places ranged from $75 to $500, depending on if it was more like a ‘pound’ or a smaller, boutique type of adoption agency. To be honest, I had been looking at the smaller owned ones because it was nice to follow them on Instagram and see the different dogs they had available. However almost every time they would go in an INSTANT (and I seriously mean an instant). So after being sort of at my end with that game, I decided to look at more local shelters that had lower fees and less social media following (or none at all). During this process I found the ACC and found out they had an app and noticed they updated it pretty regularly. So I noticed this dog Cisco on there and went to the Brooklyn shelter to go and meet him!

Upon getting to the shelter I found out Cisco had already been adopted and to be honest I was about to cry, tears were welling in my eyes. I was so ready to adopt a dog and I felt like I was getting absolutely nowhere. Luckily my assistant Jess was with me and encouraged me to go see some other dogs to lift my spirits and maybe motivate me a little bit. So we did and there was one super sweet puppy, but due to Monty we had basically already decided we wanted an older dog. So I chalked that day up for what it was and later that night was on the app and noticed Duke. Duke looked adorable and had a big old smile on his face in his photo so I was like OMG I have to meet this dog. Only issue was he was all of the way in Staten Island which is about a $100 Uber ride (at least).

I decided that the next day we would head to Staten Island right when they opened and go and meet Duke. I felt SO nervous like I was meeting a real child it was insane. I felt like all of a sudden all of these questions were in my mind like how do I know if he is right? What if he doesn’t like me? What if he bites me? What if he’s a bad breed with Monty? What if what if what if. Finally when he came out and we met he did exactly what I said my pupper soulmate would do- he jumped up on me,  looked at me in the eye, and gave me a little lick. I was in love. He was so weird (Duke is seriously super weird) and perfect, the only issue was Danny wasn’t with me so I was worried about Danny and what if he didn’t like him. True story,but I adopted Monty all on my own as well (Rachel of Jag Lever was with me) so apparently I am in charge of our adopting of animals, hah. While hanging out with Duke next to the cat room, I noticed he was very curious about the cats, but not barking, growling, or showing any chasing signs and was very happy about that because I wanted a dog that wasn’t a big chaser due to Monty our bunny.

While I was filling out the paper work other people were calling about Duke so I am SO thankful I came in early to be the first one to get there. Duke’s adoption fee was only $75 because he’s 3 years old and adopting him through ACC was SO EASY. I honestly couldn’t believe how easy it was! The other beautiful thing was that day Jess adopted a cat, so we saved two lives that day!

So now a little update on Monty and how him and Duke are getting along. They have met and Duke was very curious and Monty was freaked out. Bunnies can’t handle a lot of stress or their heart could fail so we are being VERY patient with them hanging out and meeting. We love Monty so much and don’t want to stress his sweet little self out. I have a big gate coming in tomorrow so that they will now be able to see each other (the natural next step) and see that each of them are apart of the family. I will give an update to let you guys know how everything is going in another month or so. Currently Monty has basically half of the apartment and Duke has the other half until we feel more comfortable. We have also been discussing possibly getting a little girlfriend for Monty so that’s also something that may happen in the future as well! I’ll feel like I have a farm in my apartment with the hay that will be in here at that point!

I hope you guys enjoyed this post and please comment if you have any questions and I’ll answer them! You can also shop my look below!

Love,

Noelle

 

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