As you know, our dog died last week from snakebite. We promised Tommy that we'd get him another dog and on Sunday we went looking. We tried the pound but it was closed on Sunday (isn't that silly because people are off work on Sundays???) . Then on Monday we took Tommy out of school early and went back to the pound in Santa Clarita. They didn't have any puppies, so we dropped John off at work and then went to Lancaster to check out the pound there. John had told us that we had to pick the right puppy for our family and not just any dog because it was there. He then told the kids not to listen to me because I thought all puppies were the right ones (he was right too!) We must have driven 100 miles and still no puppy. Tommy was sooo disappointed. On top of all this our baby bull calf wasn't eating and Tommy was having asthma attacks at night so nobody was sleeping. So today, I had a few minutes to kill before I took Tommy to register for soccer and I looked in the "Penny Saver". There was an ad for "Golden Retriever Mix Puppies". I called the number, left my pager number and off we went. The lady paged me, I got the directions, we went there and I'm not sure who picked who - if the puppy picked Tommy or vise versa. He is an 8 week old puppy that looks like a purebred Golden Retriever (actually he is the color of a Golden Lab with the features of a retriever). He is one cute, roly poly furball. Tommy had asked for a "Golden Receiver". He named him Rovert Sampson Hudson - LOL! Meanwhile, Amy learned how to use the locks on the van and locked us out. We had to call John to come save us and Tommy told the nice lady that Daddy would be coming in a "squat car" (squad car). What a way to meet John's new trainee. John asked Tommy if he liked the puppy and he said "I LOVE HIM". We got home and Rovert went with us to feed Willsey (bull calf who's doing much better) and life is good again. We still miss Sampson - it's very quiet and still outside (kinda depressing actually) but I'm sure chasing after the puppy will liven things up. Just hope he doesn't eat Amy's little bitty kitties. Guess what????!!! John said I could have fainting goats - yeaaaaa!!!! Jan P.S. Thanks so much to everyone who wrote with all the kind words and encouragement. It meant a lot to us.