Pooch Potential

We just might be adopting this girl next Saturday!

So here's what happened. We spent weeks and weeks filling out applications at scads of rescue organizations and being turned down. Gay, our adoption facilitator, was working her network and was taking all the rejections even more personally than we did. Finally, a rescuer Gay knows in New Jersey sent an email saying she was getting a purebred Golden into her group in early June. And -- key factor -- she hadn't listed her online anywhere. We claimed her on the spot.

Here's her story: she was originally found as an 8-week-old puppy wandering around the side of the road in North Carolina with her brother. (Her rescuers suspect a breeder dumped the puppies when he couldn't sell them.) She was adopted out to a family who ended up keeping her chained outside year 'round, even in 0 degree weather.  They returned the dog to the same rescue group for the unforgivable offense of uprooting a flower in the garden and presenting it to the mother. (Bad dog!)

She's a healthy nine-month-old girl now, who loves retrieving things like balls and flowers and sticking her head inside buckets. On Friday she'll be en route to New Jersey where we'll go meet her. 

As soon as I opened her photo yesterday, I started freakin' out. What if I can't handle her? What if she eats up the furniture? Scratches the floors? Stinks up the kitchen? Needs walking four times a day? I hope I haven't gotten in over my head. (This is why I wanted an older dog, one that was nice and lazy...)

Her first owners called her Isabelle, but we're going to give her a new name. (It's recommended. Fresh start and all.) Here's what what's in the running:

Butterscotch (Butter for short)
Lily
Ginger
Flip Flop (that’s QB’s)
Bucket

Oatmeal

Let us know which one you like. Don't worry, the voting's not rigged like it is on Dancing with the Stars.