I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. (Third Times a Charm)

Charlotte had her first Google Hangout with her 4th grade class a couple of weeks ago. That's when she found out she wasn't going back to school this year, and she wouldn't see her friends from school for months instead of weeks.

She had a bit of a meltdown. That's understandable. When her tears dried, Charlotte told us, "Well, the one good thing about this is that we can get a dog now."

Our plan was to get another dog after our June trip to Canada. When we had to cancel that trip, we told Char we'd look into getting a dog when school was out. Well, as Charlotte pointed out, our timetable had changed. 

We started by checking the websites of local animal shelters. They were all but empty. We're not trend setters. A lot of other people had the same idea. Dogs had become hot commodities. That's great for the sheltered animals, but not so great for us. 

We had to broadened our search. Daphne found a trio of Great Pyrenees sisters in a shelter in Mason City. Daphne filled out the online paperwork, and we were later pre-approved to adopt one of the females. We drove the two hours, signed in, and socially distanced ourselves for 35 minutes in their parking lot.

Turns out an employee accidentally crossed off Daphne's name on the sign-in sheet, and the shelter didn't know we were there. Another family had beaten us to the punch while we were waiting for our name that wouldn't be called. Charlotte had talked non-stop on the way to the shelter about dog names and dog activities. On the way home, she said nothing and silently cried. Breaks a guy's heart.

Daphne then found two Great Pyrenees brothers in a shelter in Ottumwa. She left several messages on their answering machine, but our calls were not returned. One brother had disappeared off their website during the night, but the other remained. That shelter opened at noon, so we adjusted our schedules to make sure we could leave the house by 10:30. We pulled up to the shelter at exactly 12, but the place was buzzing with activity. They had opened an hour early! Another family was already with the remaining brother, and we actually watched them walk the dog past us into the office to adopt him. Why not twist the knife when you remove it?

We tried to drown our sorrows with some loose meat sandwiches from the Canteen Lunch. 

The sandwiches were good, but not that good. Charlotte still cried a bit on the way home.

Craigslist was also a bust. We checked out a few ads, but the dogs were either already gone, or the ads were scams. So frustrating. 

We decided that rescuing a dog was not in the cards right now. We also needed to broaden our search even more. Daphne bought a one-month subscription to puppyfinder.com. After a couple of disappointments, we found a family in Great Bend, Kansas with six Great Pyrenees puppies. We exchanged a few texts, and before we knew it, they were holding one of their females for us. Charlotte shed tears of joy when we told her. Melts a guy's heart.

We'd be on the road for 13 hours to get to Great Bend and back. We have zero interest in staying a hotel right now, so that's about as far as we could go. Char agreed to NOT complain about the length of time spent in the car, so we went for it. On Friday night we made sandwiches for the trip and packed the car.

We were on the road by 5:10 on Saturday morning, and we arrived at 11:45. This time we were there first, and we could choose from the available three pups. Honestly, any of these girls would have been perfect.

We picked the one that looked the least like Maggie. We didn't want a "clone" of our last dog.

The ride home went much faster even with a few more stops.

 We spent quite a bit of time debating what name to give our new Monson. We decided to call her Ellie.

She inherited some of Maggie's old toys, and I bet she'll grow into them pretty quickly.

This isn't how I imagined we would get a new dog, but we'll take her.