Even though Deanna was definitely *my* dog, my sweet boy was positively heartbroken that she was no longer with us. Hubby said that whenever I was ready to get another dog, we would. I tested the waters today at the shelter and then got a call from the school that DS was in meltdown mode and just not having a good day at all, with crying bits and all that. After talking with hubby, I picked him up from school and took both children back to the shelter.
Darling boy fell in love with Brady, a super loving chocolate lab, and only 4 years old. He is rather over-weight, in fact, at 110 pounds, he is 30-35 pounds overweight!! However, he *loves* to chase his bouncy tennis ball frog (ball is the body of the frog) and has ignored the tennis ball that he brought with him from the shelter. The awesome thing is that he makes sure that he knows where both children are at all times and if he can't hear or see them, he gets up and looks for them.
Brady is a doll, and while he doesn't replace Deanna at all, he is making it a little easier. Apparently he has never encountered stairs before, so there is a little bit of a learning curve to work through. He is also too large to fit into the training crate that we had, so he will more than likely either sleep on our bedroom floor or in DSs room, though we have a feeling he will probably be comfortable in the hallway where he can hear/see all of the family..
I know that some may say it is too soon, but none of us were comfortable without a dog in the house. The only criteria we had: NOT a beagle or beagle mix, NOT the same coloring as Deanna, preferably NOT the same size as Deanna.....I think a male, chocolate lab is about as far from Deanna as we could get. The cats are not impressed, but then again, they aren't even sure what he is other than HUGE.
Larisa