October 5, 2017

The Perfect Match May Not Always Be Perfect

It has often seemed to me that finding the right dog is like finding the right partner. You know that you’re not likely to find a partner or dog who is perfect, because most dogs and people are not perfect. They have faults. The trick is to find one with the right faults — the ones you can live with, or even come to adore. Or sometimes, as Nora Ephron wrote in Sleepless in Seattle, it’s finding”…two neuroses know that they are a perfect match.”

At the Wiggle Waggle Walk and Run this year, Teena, one of our long-serving and most committed volunteers introduced me to her little Bijon Frise, adopted several years ago from the OHS. She is delighted with this little guy. He is her best friend. The match was perfect. But here is the thing: our staff identified a list of challenges with the dog before Teena adopted him. Further, he had actually been brought back to the shelter not once but twice before she found him, or perhaps more accurately, the found each other.

Admittedly, not all the dogs up for adoption at the OHS are perfect. No dog ever is. But then, all you need is to find the dog with the right faults, or perhaps the neuroses that match with your own. In other words, the perfect match.

October is Adopt a Shelter Dog Month, a great month to find your perfect match at the OHS.

Bruce Roney
Executive Director

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