The search continues...

Since I had decided to bite the bullet and get yet another puppy I decided that I was going to try and train a Search and Rescue dog again.  I started reading the books I had purchased back when I was interested in getting Lola into Search and Rescue and continued looking for a puppy.  I caught a break from my several time a day looking on Petfinder.com and found that the local shelter had just come by a litter of puppies that was going to be up for adoption at the local Petsmart.  I immediately contacted the person, and filled out the adoption application.  I was told that the puppies would be at the store at 9am on Saturday.  I contacted Brenda Richards with Valley Search and Rescue and she was gracious enough to come to the adoption day with me to evaluate a puppy for Search and Rescue.  The store was a mob scene!  Evidentaly I was not the only person looking for a puppy and out of the 11 that were there to start with, by the time Brenda and I contacted each other there were perhaps 7 left.  One by one we pulled prospective candidates out of the litter to evaluate them.  Certain ones didn't make the cut right off the bat just from watching them.  The first puppy lacked any kind of interest in playing with a toy at all, a very important, and similar problem that Lola had.  This puppy was put back to be adopted by another person.  The 2nd puppy, a boy, was just....well...amazing!  This puppy went for the toy like it was the only thing in the world and with a little coaxing, even retrieved, and at 8 weeks old!  Not to just take the first potential candidate we took one of his sisters to test her potential.  It took her a little to warm up, but she did, and showed interest in the toy proving that she could be a viable candidate, however would likely take more work than her brother.  Relying on Brendas' experience, I asked her point blank if she would take the boy puppy to train as a Search and Rescue dog, to which she said to me something along the lines of, she would not hesitate this puppy to train as a Search and Rescue dog.  As such the little girl was put back, and I adopted her brother.  It's at this point that the story gets a tad odd, was I meant to have this puppy?  Was it fate we crossed each others paths?  While going through the paperwork the shelter has to name the puppies to keep them straight with vaccines and the like.  This puppys name was Mark.  Mark happens to be my fathers name.  In addition, the puppys birthday is estimated to be on or about August 12.  My fathers Birthday is August 11th.  I know you are saying to yourself, what the heck kind of name is Mark for a puppy?  Well I agree, and I will change it as soon as I find something that suits this little guy.  In the meantime I am just calling him puppy.