Meet Jazzy! (Updated)

Pretty much everyone who knows that we took in a foster dog a couple of weeks ago saw this coming but we truly didn’t.

I’ll get right to the point before I share the story: the Smiths added a fourth furbaby to our family last Friday. We adopted our second dog, an 8-month old female  named Jazzy. Updated information: We originally thought Jazzy was a jackabee (Jack Russell terrier/beagle mix) Now, after having Jazzy for two months, we believe she is more of a black-mouth cur rather than a jackabee.

The story of Jazzy

It all started the first week of June when we learned that the local shelter where we got Flower took in 25 pets from one home and about 100 for the week, making it beyond overcrowded. Emergency foster homes were needed and we wanted to help so we headed to the shelter with Flower to pick up a pet. We knew that a transport was scheduled for the end of the month that would take some dogs to a different state where they were more likely to be adopted and not euthanized.

We visited with two dogs and one was clearly not a good fit with Flower and the other seemed acceptable, at least for the three weeks before the transport. As we started to fill out the paperwork we learned that the dog had just been adopted and was no longer available. We then tried that dog’s kennel mate, which was Jazzy. Her and Flower got along great immediately and we thought it would be a fun, easy three weeks.

The weekend was busy but we enjoyed having Jazzy. That Monday we took her back to the shelter to be spayed. We brought her home to recuperate and were a little frustrated at trying to keep such a hyper dog inactive for the required 10 days. In that time, however, she and Flower formed a bond that surprised even us. After all, dogs are pack animals but they acted more like best friends than just buddies.

We discussed the idea of adopting her, but didn’t want to decide until we had a chance to get to know Jazzy when she wasn’t recuperating from surgery. We then learned that a decision had to be made immediately because the transport list had to be finalized a week or so in advance. We went to the shelter to see if we could adopt her, even in that moment not 100 percent certain. We just knew that Flower and her seemed like perfect playmates. They even seemed to help keep each other busy enough that they didn’t bother the cats, which made everyone happy!

In the moment when we had to wait to see if we were allowed to adopt Jazzy, we both realized that we were in fact 100 percent sure. If the shelter had come back and said we had to give her up for transport, we would have been really, really sad. Like we lost a member of our family.

We took our Jazzy home and told her and Flower that they were forever sisters. They both looked at us like they understood (or like they wanted a treat, it’s hard to tell).

Great decision

We won’t lie, Jazzy is a lot of work. She literally wants to play fetch for hours and doesn’t enjoy walking like Flower does. Considering Flower hates to play fetch, this means they must be exercised separately. They also both like to each others’ food so they have to be fed in separate rooms. But that’s pretty much the only time they are apart!

We’re grateful that we adopted Jazzy and look forward to getting her trained so she can go out in public with us (Heck, we’re still working on that with Flower!). She’s a sweet-tempered, loving creature that seems to make our family more complete. When friends and family learned we chose to adopt, everyone has expressed happiness and an interesting lack of surprise. Many friends said they had been hoping we would adopt her because she and Flower seemed so happy together in all the photos. Looking back, I have to agree.

Welcome home, Jazzy.