I recently became a dog mom, it happened so much quicker than I thought it would and I was thrusted into an adoption worldwind. I thought I would share my process as I navigate mom life with you all in hopes to inspire yourself to look into adopting.

Before you start looking into adopting or even buying, make sure you are 100% sure you are ready for the commitment. With covid and lockdowns there has been a surge in people getting dogs to accompany them and fill in the extra time they had and now countries are returning back to normalish life they don’t have time for their furry friends anymore and more dogs are being returned or brought to shelters/kennels. So if you just want a cuddle buddy companion to fill your days at home before you return to work, I would think twice about getting a dog.
For me ive wanted a dog for 4+ years now and spent hours scrolling through adoption pages and doing my research.

When we moved accommodation, we asked if we could get a dog, in our contract we got it written in that we could get a small-medium dog. And thus the fence building starting and I started filling in forms with adoption agencies as I know how fast dogs can come and go.

A few weeks later we got an email with a new litter from Auckland puppy adoption but sadly the cute bundles of fur were due to be large dogs which we couldn’t take. There was a couple dogs we liked on Auckland council adoption page so we called to see if we could meet them. We were allowed to meet one and I wasn’t sold on her photo so I wasn’t expecting much other than visiting to see what kind of dog we wanted/would fit into our home.
We heading into the manaku shelter, filled in our form and waited to be taken to see a dog names Harmony. Walking through the shelter I was overcome with the cutness of all the dogs we walked by and I wanted to open each kennel and take them all home with me.

We were told while we waited for Harmony play mate for the day to be moved that she can take a minute to warm up to you. Me and Johnny had watched tv shows on adoption and knew what to do, so we got down on the floor and waited potentially, expecting her to pay no attention to us. What we didn’t expect was her to jump into my lap and start kissing my face. Neither did the trainer, and this was how she chose us. 1 week later, she was in our home.

Her advertisement photo.