Epilogue

On Sunday evening, we dropped off Lily at her new home. Her new family was excited to see her as was her new canine brother. He immediately started playing with her in the living room, although Lily seemed a little nervous about being in a strange place with strange people. Soon they were tearing around the house, down the back stairs, around the yard, back up the stairs and back into the house. It was clear they were going to get along.

Walking out their door and leaving Lily behind was the hardest thing I've had to do in a long time. Lily didn't understand why we were leaving but she wasn't. And even though I knew this was the perfect family for her -- even better than staying with us -- we couldn't make Lily understand that. All we could do was give her one last hug and kiss and make sure she didn't slip out the front door as we left.

We got a couple emails from her new mom:

Lily and her brother played some serious tug of war this morning and are chasing each other in the back yard right now. She has followed his lead with going to the bathroom outside and finally came into our bedroom this morning. She is definitely relaxing and becoming more and more comfortable.

and the next day:

She had a good day today. I think she's gone into all the rooms, but hasn't stayed long in any but the front rooms and our bedroom. The dogs and kids are outside playing in the yard now.

Meanwhile, our house is quieter than usual. Calvin seems a little sad and depressed. I have tried to play with him more in the evenings to cheer him up but he probably won't return to his old self until we bring another playful rescue home.

After talking on the way home, we decided we are going to wait a couple months to take in another rescue dog. With the stress of the holidays, relatives visiting in January and some very important personal events coming up, we think its best to wait a little bit before bringing another one home. But even when we have another dog in our house, we will never forget Lily and how 3 months with her brought us such happiness and joy.