From Georgia With Love

We've talked about it for a few months now and I've been putting it off since I lost Shadow back in October of 2010, so it was hard for me to get a new dog - or even look for one.

It seems as though when the time is right, the time is right.  This past October we entertained adopting a dog and looked around at various places, we even applied when we saw a few dogs that we liked.  But there was no response and we ended up at a local shelter here in NY.

We weren't sure if it was better to adopt from a kill shelter or a no-kill shelter.  The debate was if we adopted from a kill shelter, we'd be saving a life, but if we adopted from a no-kill shelter we'd be making room for another animal to be saved, at the same time supporting the no-kill philosophy.  

Another application submitted and we decided that if we didn't hear back in a weeks time, we'd go to the local shelter.  A few nights before we looked through the website for dogs that we thought we'd like, we saw a few and emailed the shelter if they were still available.  Some were and some weren't.

On the morning of the 29th, we checked one more time and saw a new face - her name was Kora.  She was described as a young female collie mix.  We called the shelter and they said she was still available for adoption, so we sprung out of bed and quickly got ready to make a mad dash to meet Kora.  

Filled with anticipation we made out way through the shelter and saw her lying down on the ground.  Extremely shy and very scared - but who wouldn't be after all that's gone on in the past month or two of her life and the revolving door of other dogs and people day in and day out.  On her card it says that she arrived just a few days earlier, not even a week at this shelter.  

There was something special about her, and we went to the meeting room to see if we'd all get along.  At first she jumped on the bench and was curious to see what was going on.  Not making any eye contact with us or acknowledging that we were even there.  She explored and jumped on whatever she could to the highest point - I'm assuming to get a birds eye view of where she was, what was going on and to see this shelter life that she'd been a part of for only a few days.

A few hours went by, we sat there wondering if there was a connection, if she liked us and if we liked her.  Little did we know that that connection had already started when we saw her picture earlier that morning.  I remember Yas saying that we weren't leaving this place without taking Kora with us.  We fell in love, even though she didn't give us that attention that puppies give, even though she didn't lick our faces, jump on our laps, or even look at us for more than a second ... we were drawn to her and wanted to take her home.  We felt that removing her from this kind of environment might make her open up to us more, that all that was going on around her was distracting her from being a sweet dog that she is.

Reluctant to give her back to the trainers as they processed our application, we waited and hoped that we'd get approved.  After all we weren't sure how this process worked.  After about an hour of waiting we were approved and we could take her home!  We were happy, excited and just wanted to get her home.  We ended up naming her Yuki (means snow in Japanese) on the ride home, for the first snow that day we adopted her.

There was little information on her background, the only thing we knew about her was that she was rescued from Georgia.  

We wanted to know more about her, know where she came from, what she'd been through and why anyone would let her go.  After a recheck I saw on her medical folder the words "Saving Georgia" and this is where my search started.

After a quick search I found that Saving Georgia had a site, and a forum.  I scoured that forum through all the posts for 2 or 3 pages looking to see if I could see a picture of her or even a description of her.  It took a while but she was found.  There she was before she made it up here to NY, shy, timid and scared.  We found out that she was a picked up as a stray and they didn't have anymore information on her.  She did come into the shelter in Georgia with another dog who was a golden retriever, but it wasn't clear if they were together or if they were just picked up around the same time.  

I had a chance to speak with the person who rescued her in Georgia and was ever so thankful for saving her.  I remember her telling me that when she saw her in the shelter, she just had to save her.  

So that's how we met Yuki (formerly Kora), from being saved in Georgia and being sent to NY to come find us.  We aren't sure what she went through before September 15th, but we hope that she's happy with us now.  She's slowly opened up more and more, but is still a bit scared and shy ... we'll continue to give her all the love and affection that she needs and deserves.

Yuki on the car ride home

Tired from all that she's been through

1 week after adoption in the park