Hello, it is I the human, Lauren. I am the creator of this blog and one of the owners of Sam. It's been a few months since I last posted about Sam, so there is a lot to talk about. I am hoping to start blogging a little more often while also giving more frequent updates. And hopefully, soon get my blogs out there for more people to see and follow us on Sam's journey. However, I thought I'd make a longer blog today and talk to you more about what prompted us to adopt Sam, and how far he's come.
It all started back in November when my boyfriend Jake and I purchased our first house. We had been living at his parent's place and decided it was time to find somewhere for us. We looked around for a while and met with a really great real estate agent who helped us to find the perfect house for us. We finally moved into our home on November 16th, 2020. It was a long journey to get settled in as homeowners. And even to this day, we are still settling in. Both him and I for most if not all of our life had some sort of animal in the house, so once we moved into our home things felt empty and lonely. It didn't quite feel like home. We had talked about getting an animal at some point but had always talked about getting it later on down the road. We hadn't planned to adopt within two weeks of moving in, but it felt right. Unfortunately due to Covid not many animal shelters were accepting walk-ins so this made our search a little bit harder. We had reached out to people on Facebook, and even a few other social media platforms to see if anyone else had animals they were looking to rehome, but unfortunately, everything came up dry or wasn't within a distance we could easily drive to.
We finally picked up the phone and started calling around until we finally reached out to Cincinnati Animal Care who said they accepted walk-ins and gave us a site to pick out some possible animals to meet with. And thus began our search for the perfect dog. Him and I had spent much of the drive there discussing what all we wanted in an animal, and we weren't super picky. However, we had hoped to find a young dog who could be trained and grow up with us. And we wanted them to at least be potty trained. Due to how often my boyfriend works potty training is just something neither of us felt we had time to handle. We had also discussed how we both would prefer adopting a pitbull, unfortunately, there are so many stereotypes about Pitbulls that often cause them to be overlooked as loving family dogs. In reality, this breed is among one of the sweetest I have ever known.
On our list, only two dogs had really stuck out to us, their names were Sam, and Rhonda. Jake fell in love with Sam from the moment he laid eyes on his photo, and he got a look in his eye that was pure happiness. It made me happy as well, we didn't know what to expect with these dogs though we didn't know a ton about them. When we arrived at the shelter we spoke with this really nice woman at the desk who assisted us in determining what dog would be best for us. We gave them the two names and learned about both. However, upon learning, we discovered that Rhonda would not be a good fit due to the fact she has a bite history and is overprotective of food, and toys. We decided that wasn't going to work for us, but hoped she'd find someone who could overlook that and help her.
We learned a few things about Sam that made us want him even more. They told us that Sam was found tied to a tree with no food, or water and left for dead. They were unsure of what happened with his owner, but it was best that he was found and placed for adoption. It's so cruel how some people can be towards creatures that have nothing but love and care to give. We decided this was a good time to meet with Sam and see how he interacted with us. They brought him out and obviously he was a big baby, he was extremely sweet and loving. From the first moment, we could tell he definitely had lots of energy, but that was something we could overlook. We also noticed how much he drooled. But this didn't make us love him any less. It was clear that Sam enjoyed our company even if he was struggling to sit still or stay focused. From this short visit, we decided he was perfect. We spoke to the woman about taking him, and we could see the sadness in the worker's eyes, they all loved him. They all had nothing but nice things to say about him. The other thing that we were told about Sam was that he disliked other animals. However, they believed this was something he could grow out of overtime. So with that, we decided he was worth it.
We paid the adoption fee, and got a leash and collar, and walked to the car with the excited Sam pulling ahead in front of us. He hopped into the car with ease and began sniffing everything he possibly could. I could only imagine how it must've felt being outside of those walls and in a new space with tons of new smells. I can imagine some excitement, confusion, and most definitely anxiety. We drove home with Sam sitting and looking out the window with it rolled down, taking in all the fresh air and smells of fast food cooking nearby. When we finally got home we allowed Sam to explore the house, opened doors, and let him get a sense of his new home and his new backyard which he instantly opened up to. He ran around so fast, and even tried to dig a bit. The digging was definitely something we were worried about but at that moment we were happy.
It took no time for Sam to really settle in, he seemed pretty comfortable immediately. It took him some time to realize he was allowed on the furniture but once he realized he made it his mission to nap on the bed and couch any chance he could. Later that day Jake and I called his parents to see if they'd be willing to sit with the dog while we ran to the pet store for a bit to get the things we needed for him, we didn't feel right leaving him alone on his first day after his history and they were more than happy to. He settled in quite well to them also. We returned home finally with food, treats, toys, and some other items we felt we could use. The feelings of excitement and joy we received from Sam were lovely. Immediate tail wags and some kisses as we entered the door. We spent most of the remainder of the day playing with Sam outside and cuddling up on the couch with him.
It saddened us to see how thin he was, we gave him food and knew that he would eventually put on some pounds. We officially became dog owners, it's such an amazing and weird feeling all at the same time. But even after one day, Sam earned a big place in each of our hearts. I will be continuing this update in a second part which will include his interests and some things he's experienced as well as learned. I hope you guys will stick around to learn more about Sam and his journey to his life in a furever home.
