Introducing: SAMSON! :D
The apartment isn’t quite where I want it to be, but Samson was picked up from the Durham Animal Protection Society around 11:00am yesterday afternoon 
é›…é›… and I then made a beeline straight to the groomers — the back seat of my car acquiring a new carpet of beagle fur during the trip — so that he could get cleaned up from living in the shelter. The groomer said he loved (!) getting bathed and cleaned up, except for resisting with all his might when it came to cleaning his teeth 
Samson sleeping on a pillow next to my recliner
After the grooming we dropped some $$$ on more doggie toys and related accoutrements for the apartment, took him home so he could get acquainted to the place, then headed to a 2:30pm appointment with Dr. Farling at Southpoint Animal Hospital.1 He got vaccinated for something I can’t pronounce — and didn’t even flinch or howl! — and also got a thorough physical exam. There’s a small cyst on his back but beyond that and heartworms he got a clean bill of health! 
And yes, you read that last sentence correctly: the poor doggie has heartworms.
That’s part of why I ended up adopting him. The Tuesday before I left for the ABA Annual Meeting in Toronto, 雅雅 and I went to the Durham APS just out of curiosity — I wanted to see if they had any boxers, and had swore to myself before going in that I wouldn’t get another beagle.2
To highlight how much I wasn’t expecting to get a dog, I was still wearing a full suit from a lunch meeting I had earlier in the day
As we walked through the different cages, I was taking notes on my iPhone as to which dogs I wanted more info about. Â We got to Samson’s cage and he was just laying there on the floor and didn’t even try to get up.
But he thumped his tail twice and had the cutest little eyes, so I added him to the list 
We go back to the front of APS and I ask for his background. Â Apparently Animal Control found him on East Club Boulevard here in Durham all the way back in April. The on-site vets put his age somewhere in the 4-7 years old range; the consensus guess is now somewhere around 5.5 years, though I’m not sure that’s a “consensus” so much as “splitting the difference between 4 and 7.”
He seems to prefer tummy scratches over everything else
Then, after Animal Control brought him in, the Durham APS actually found his original owners… and they refused to come get him 
And if that wasn’t bad enough, at some point amid being abandoned by the people who were supposed to protect and provide for him the poor guy developed a heartworm infection too. So basically he’s an old beagle with heartworms stuck in a shelter for four months, making him a prime candidate for euthanasia.
The sheer soul-crushing feeling I got as they were reading me his file really can’t be expressed in words. It was bad enough that I started tearing up in the office (a rare event given my otherwise-stoic personality).
So I asked if I could hang out with him for a couple minutes, wearing my suit and all…
A few minutes later the visiting room door opens and in runs this massive dog, tail wagging and thwapping and thwomping all over the place. The first thing he does when he comes in is jump on me, then jump on the bench in the room. Really boundless energy for a dog with his health condition. After about 15 minutes the APS was prepping to close so I had them take him back to his cage, but decided for certain that I was going to adopt him, help him get healthy, and give him a loving home for the next decade or so of his life 
I’ve since been freaking out because the adoption fee, flea/tick treatment, heartworm treatment, food, supplies, toys, vet, etc etc etc is about half of what I still owe Bar-Bri for my bar exam review, but he’s been super-well-behaved so far and I know it was the right decision at the right time. The challenge now of course is trying to see if I can crate-train a 5.5-year-old dog that’s spent the last 4 months in the doggie equivalent of death row
I’ve all-but-abandoned my internship and still have that Civil Rights paper to finish… but I’m also having one of the best weeks ever
That’s it from me for tonight, you’ll be reading more about Samson in the days / weeks / months ahead  Prayers for me becoming an effective trainer are appreciated! 
- Not only is Dr. Farling an N.C. State vet school graduate, the place is literally within walking distance of my apartment [↩]
- I used to have a beagle back in middle/high school who finally passed away in 2007. They’re great dogs, but I was worried they’d be too energetic for a law student’s apartment. [↩]
