Something entirely unexpected happened to us at the end of this year. It was December 30th, my birthday, and I was driving home from the store. At a stop sign near my house I noticed a homemade sign about a lost dog. Just before Christmas a gentleman had knocked on our door around 9:00 p.m. on the search for his missing German Shepherd puppy. His dog, Daisy, had ran away from their DeWitt home and he'd been tracking her all day. Some how she made it across the highway, through multiple golf courses and through our front yard. Unfortunately we hadn't seen her. For the next few days it weighed on my heart that his family was missing their dog right before Christmas. I took my twins to a nearby park on Christmas eve to search for her with no luck. I stopped in at the local vet to see if they had her. She wasn't there either. When I saw the homemade sign I thought maybe they had her. I turned right, instead of my normal left and drove to the business that had posted the sign. It is a local storage company at the end of my street. When I went in I asked them if by chance the puppy they had was Daisy. They said come look and see.

On command the sweetest little brownish red and white puppy, with big floppy ears bounded out from behind the desk. I immediately dropped to my knees and scooped him into my arms as he licked my face. As joyous as our meeting was, this wasn't Daisy. I asked what they were hoping to do with him. Since he was abandoned or a runaway they were in search of someone to home him until they could locate the owners. One of the men asked if I'd like him. My immediate response was, oh no. Even though my 11 year old twins had been asking for a puppy ever since their same aged cousin got a puppy, I didn't think my husband would want him. They said go home and ask him. So I did. As expected all the kids said yes. However my husband was reluctant. About 5 years ago we had a 15 year old Samoyed that was very precious to us, die a slow and painful death. It was hard on us. For almost a year our Sparty needed constant attention to go to the bathroom, to get up and eventually, after a year, be put to rest. It still breaks my heart to mention it. We hadn't been able to bear to get another dog since. Yet, here we were about to do just that. I prayed about it and very clearly I heard God say, go get that dog, he needs you. So my Daughter and I drove back down. The business owner agreed to let us foster the dog until an owner was located, but mentioned he really thought the dog was abandoned.

The excitement in our house was more joyous than it had been in a long time. My kids were excited beyond anything I'd ever seen. Even the adults were excited by this new pup. He joined our family for my birthday celebration and all the extended family got to meet Cooper, our new puppy.

After ringing in the new year I had a moment to see if there were any updates about Daisy on Facebook. While searching I found the post the business owner had put out about our new puppy. As I read the words my heart sunk; he'd gotten a call from the owner and had given them my contact information. With such a heavy heart I went to tell my family that Cooper had a home and the owners would be calling to get him. My son was so heart broken he couldn't even talk. Strangely, we didn't get a call from the owners. It had been 3 days and still nothing. I decided to call him. His voicemail was full but ten minutes after I called he returned my call asking if I'd called him. This next part still gives me pause, as I know it was orchestrated by the Lord. This man stated he was unable to keep the dog and asked if we wanted to keep him. I tried not to cry. I said, oh yes we'd love to keep him. He sent me photos of Cooper (his name was Storm) as a puppy. He gave me the puppy's birthday date which happened to by my husband's birthday. He asked if I would send him photos of the puppy every so often. I said I would and I thanked him for the best birthday present he could have given us.

I'm not going to say it's been super easy with a new dog and 3 kids, but it's been exciting. Cooper loves to play and run. He's afraid of balloons and cars. He had a few anxiety issues that we are working on but he's super smart. We just took him in for his second set of shots and he's really healthy. He's worm and flea free now, is vaccinated against rabies and has grown 20 pounds since we got him two months ago.

As he bounds around the house right now, chasing my 4 year old grandson, his tags make a tink-tink sound. When we brought him home we didn't have any new supplies for him so I grabbed what we had, Sparty's bright green collar. I think he'll grow into it nicely.