Neo was adopted!

Neo is one of my more interesting adoption stories.  He was an interesting mix of hard-to-place and highly adoptable.  If he wasn't such a rare breed of dog, he'd be considered very hard to place.  Between his advanced age, some hip problems, and the huge amount of drool he left everywhere, it would normally take a very special person to adopt him.  But because of his rare breed and large size, he actually had several people interested in him.  So the trick was to find that special person who knew what they were getting into with his age and health and constant drooling and would still give him a wonderful home. 

Here's where it gets interesting.  One of the first applications I received was from a lady who lives in Tennessee.   I generally don't like to adopt my foster animals out of state.  For one, if the adoption doesn't work out, I am not really wanting to drive 10 hours to pick the dog up if the adopter decides to drop the dog off at their local shelter.  Plus I didn't really like the idea of Neo going to someone who I couldn't meet in advance, short of when she actually showed up to pick him up.  It's hard to get a read on a person just from e-mail or phone calls sometimes.  And with Neo, I was even afraid someone might adopt him with his very low adoption fee and then turn around and sell him just to make money.  So my first thought on the application from Tennessee was "too risky".  So I kept looking. 

There are a lot of people locally who were interested, and I did have a few good applications, but I kept coming back to the Tennessee applicant.  We'd continued to talk via e-mail, and the more I talked to her, the more I liked her.  She has another Neapolitan Mastiff, so I knew she was prepared for the special needs of the breed (like constantly cleaning up drool).  She also has fostered and worked with rescues in the past, and her own Neapolitan Mastiff was also a rescue.  Eventually she convinced me that if she were to adopt Neo, he'd be a very loved and well-cared for dog.  So I said okay, how soon can you come meet him?  Less than two days later she made the ten hour drive with her own Neapolitan Mastiff to meet Neo.  And after meeting her, I was so glad I took a chance.  In fact, I asked her if she'd please consider adopting one more dog while she was here (thinking of Kermit!).  Of course she's got that one quality I admire most in rescue people - she knows how much time she has for her pets, and said she didn't want to adopt more than one dog because she wouldn't have enough time for the ones she already has.  Awesome.  I know that Neo is one lucky dog to be adopted by her. 

The other thing that made this adoption interesting was that while we introduced her mastiff and Neo at the local PetSmart, we had a number of people ask if we were going to breed them.  Uh, no.  I loved how she answered them - not judging them or preaching and making them feel bad, just explaining that they were both rescues, and there were so many dogs out there needing homes that she always adopted rescues instead of buying from a breeder.  I'm sure she'll have many more opportunities to educate people when they see her with a male and female purebred Neapolitan Mastiff, and I'm so glad that she's a great advocate for rescue.