"Cause nobody wants to be the last one there
And everyone wants to feel like someone cares
Someone to love with my life in their hands
There's gotta be somebody for me, oh!"
- Nickleback's Gotta Be Somebody

Those are the lyrics that came on the radio as I was driving home this afternoon. The importance will play in later.

Sparky and I have been talking about getting another dog so that Ed isn't so alone. I refuse to buy a dog from a pet store because there is tooo high a chance that its a puppy from a puppy mill. And I REFUSE to help such an industry. Buying from a reputable breeder is prohibitively expensive.

So, after loading Ed into the car, taking some soup to the sick Sia, Ed and I went over to Animal Friends of the Valley, the local animal shelter. Sparky and I had visited on Saturday and liked a Lab mix that charmed both of us and I wanted Edward to meet him today. However, he'd been adopted already so the gal who worked there (cute little blonde) brought forth a series of dogs to meet Edward and I. The third dog she brought out was a retriever/husky mix that was about 4 years old and for some reason had a shortened tail, as if it had been cut off or amputated for some reason. He was calm, interested in Edward, wanted to play, was a lovey puppy and just a bit bigger then here. Quite terribly thin and attention starved. Already housebroken, partially obedience trained, and somewhat leash trained. I saw one dog after him but knew I liked him. Edward was a bit wigged out by the environment, so many dogs, so much misery.

I found out that the golden bob-tailed dog I met had been there over two weeks... a very long time for a dog there. Dangerously long for a dog in a shelter that isn't a no-kill one. That can't afford to keep dogs until they're adopted, it raises the chance of them getting an infection and passing it to the rest of the animals there. Very long for a dog that is four years old, no longer a puppy, no longer easy to adopt out.

I could tell it was close to his terminal by the reaction of sheer relief on the gal's face as I asked for the dog's intake number. On the faces of office clerks when I told them I wanted him. The fact they let me work around not having a yard check yet. They let me pay for him and bring him home today, then sent out a guy to check the yard this evening.

I've named my new fur baby Acheron because I heard the Nickleback song mentioned above while I was driving home. Nickleback makes me think of Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter series, especially Acheron, who sings a Nickleback song to his girl Tory. It struck me as a good name because both Acheron and my dog have been hurt, abandoned, neglected and tossed away. And both were saved. Neither was the last one there.