Day one.

Our plan had been to not get a puppy for a few months. The last few weeks of Riley's life had been stressful--his arthritis was so painful he had trouble lying down; he could no longer manage stairs; while his appetite was good he was also getting a bit demented and we needed to follow him around with the food dish to remind him to eat. Everything took a long time. He could only walk to the corner and back, and it took a half-hour.

So when he died in mid-November, it was crushingly sad but it was also a relief: One dog, one healthy, housebroken, busy dog, was so easy.

So why did I find myself cruising Petfinder, looking for border collie puppies?  Was I bored? Was I nuts?

This was the coldest Christmas in something like 20 years, and after Christmas it got even colder. Not a great time for housebreaking a pup.  And yet...when I saw Charlotte's Puppies--two females, five males, border collie-lab mixes, with white-tipped tails and white-striped noses, I decided to, you know, just check them out.

Getting a puppy has gotten increasingly difficult. When I got Toby (given to me by a former boyfriend), you went to the pound, you paid $5, you took home a puppy.  Boscoe we got by chance from a farm; the farm wife wanted $50 but all I had was twenties, so I gave her $60.  Riley was from the humane society in Forest Lake, and we had to leave him there for a week so he could be neutered, and pay several hundred dollars.  Rosie is from MARS (appropriately enough) and we had to pre-pay her spaying and microchipping and the whole thing came to something like $300. We didn't know the vet who was authorized to do the spaying, so we just told them to consider our payment a donation and when the time came we paid our own vet to do the job.

Charlotte's Puppies were being handled by a rescue group called Heart of a Border Collie. I had to fill out an application, including three references. This was just the start. They called the references right away, before I even had a chance to let anyone know I had given out their name and number. Then they called and did an interview with me. And then the next thing I knew, I was talking to a foster mom a few days after Christmas and making arrangements for them to bring two of the puppies for a home visit.

We don't have to take either one, I said to Doug, who nodded silently. He knows me. He knew where this was headed. I didn't;  We can just check them out, I said. And then they'll have all our references and paperwork on file if we want to adopt a puppy in the spring.

Right, he said.

Home visit! We have had dogs for more than 20 years and we never had someone come and inspect our house to make sure it was ok for a dog. I was ridiculously nervous. We cleaned, we decluttered, we made sure the gates were closed in the yard and fretted that they might think the fence along the south side of the yard was too short. We debated taking the Christmas tree down. We vacuumed. We tidied the couch.

And then, here they were, two very nice people in parkas, walking up our front walk, each carrying a squirming black puppy.

The pups were brothers, Cole (the all-black one) and Calvin (white nose and marbled belly). They were adorable--maybe 8 weeks old, maybe a little older, racing around the house. Rosie was in heaven. Cole was more assertive. He peed on the rug. Calvin was shyer, but he played well.

There was no way the nice couple was leaving our house with both dogs.

Cole had a run-in with Rosie--he barked at her, and the foster parents said he was a little more assertive than his brother. And that (plus Calvin's white-tipped tail) helped me decide. Rosie has a huge personality. She needs a meeker brother. (Plus one with a white-tipped tail.)

Before we knew it, the foster parents were handing over paperwork (scant paperwork--the puppies were either born on Nov. 7 or Nov. 17, it said, and they were rescued from the Pine Ridge Reservation), I was writing a check (in my excitement I "rounded up" by $125 to $500--a nice donation for Heart of a Border Collie), and Calvin was in my arms.

Oh boy. It was ten degrees below zero outside. We didn't have a crate, puppy pads, puppy dishes, or any strong recollection of what we were getting into. And yet--we had a puppy.