He's A Scamp!

For the past year, my daughter Elena has been pestering, begging, cajoling (you get the picture) for a puppy of her own. "It's all I want for my birthday," she declared. "I'll be responsible. You know I will." From my husband's perspective, a 6-year-old lab, two guinea pigs and a cat were enough responsibility for any household. "Too much chaos around here," he grumbled in response to Elena's pleadings.

But last December, we saw first-hand that a determined 10-year-old girl can be responsible when we watched my brother's Wheaton Terrier puppy for several days before Christmas. Elena cleaned up accidents without complaint, stood outside with the pup in frigid temperatures and slept downstairs on the floor when the puppy cried at night.

So Elena received the promise of a new puppy for her 11th birthday with the understanding that we would not start looking until the end of the school year, three weeks after her actual birthday. We had several requirements for our new puppy: 1) It would be a rescue or shelter dog; 2) we wanted a smaller breed (under 30 lbs.) this time around; and 3) most importantly, it needed to be a breed that did well with children and other pets.

After several weeks of searching on Petfinder, I ran across several puppies that fit our criteria listed under a rescue organization called Flawdogs Adoption. Even though they were located an hour or so from St. Louis, I called them to find out more information. To make a long story short, we ended up meeting them at a local pet fair. Nancy, one of the women who runs Flawdogs, promised to bring beagle, puggle and schnauzer puppies. She also brought a puppy that we hadn't seen on Petfinder, a scrappy but lovable black and white rat terrier/poodle mix.

Well, we were all smitten with Scamp, the rat terrier/poodle mix, and he with us. Who says there's no such thing as love at first sight? OK, so the cat is not Scamp's number one fan. The rest of us, however, can't get enough of this little pup! Thank you so much, Flawdogs Adoption! You've given us the perfect puppy! Ellen
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