So we called up Barb Evans of Evanwhit and arranged to see the last puppy of Jenny's litter. (Here's a neat tidbit: Puppies were born the day after my birthday! How awesome is that.) Anyway, the little girl is an absolute sweetheart and of course, John just fell in love with her right away. We couldn't make any promises right then and there though, because part of this expedition was to see how my allergies handled it.

The good news is that my lungs handled it like champions. We were there a commensurate amount of time to our first visit way back in November of 2009, and yet I experienced no breathing issues, no sniffliness, no itchy or watery eyes, no wheezing. (Compared to the first time: I got sniffly within half an hour and had breathing issues by the time we left--but this time was such a vast improvement. I could tell I was in the presence of a lot of dander, but it didn't cause any issues.) It was great. This, despite the fact that there were many dogs in the house, as well as one or two cats. One of the cats was in my face, head-and-tail butting me, and an adult dog kept jumping up and licking my face. Normally I would probably gently take steps to avoid this, but figured that we should know the worst. And I seem to have pulled through just fine. We graded it an A-, since I did get a tiny itch right at the end, but no other symptoms.We waited over 24 hours to see if any further symptoms would develop but nothing really did, so we've decided to go forward.

(Of course, we will be stress testing my lungs as much as possible during the next few weeks. All my coworkers are volunteering their dogs for this: aussie shepherds, dachshunds, schnauzers, and so on. I'm hanging out with my cousin's dogs, my neighbour's dogs, and so on. And if it ever becomes doubtful that we can deal with FutureAni, we will try to let Barb know at the earliest possible point to minimize any stress to the dog. But so far, all tests have been great and we're very positive.)

So I have called Barb and let her know that we are interested in taking the puppy on. We're thinking about calling her Ani. :) I've checked into the vets, picked one. We've got a plan for how we will introduce her to the house and what her area will be. (She will never be allowed in the bedroom/my bathroom but we have a second bathroom so this is not an issue.) We've been reading books, and once we've got the go-ahead from Barb, we'll start prepping the house for her arrival. :)