@amn My wife and I obtained our pups from the shelter when they were 8 1/2 weeks old (they are now 4). We had just put down our previous dog a week prior and hadn't intended to look for a new pup so soon but our house just felt too empty. He was a shelter pup so we decided to try adopting again and to go over the weekend to the local area's shelter and see what dogs where there. We had done no esearch into what dogs might be there but our intention was to look for a dog that was about 2 years old or so. We didn't know ahead of time they would have puppies and we were not intentionally looking for puppies.
We showed up early in the morning and walked thru the kennels and looked at the various pups there but many were sadly not good with kids or other dogs and at the time we were still intending to start a family and maybe adopt a second dog at a later date. Towards the end of walking through the kennel is when we saw they had 3 puppies that went up for adoption that day. All three were from the same litter and were apparently puppies to a dog in foster. Two of the puppies were in one kennel and one in another. The two in the same kennel were cuddling on the bed looking really cute together while the third was yapping its little head off and trying to scale the kennel door. Not initially intending to get a dog that day (let alone puppies) my wife and I walked out the front door and then we just stopped.
Outside we just kind of paused and started talking about the puppies, if we wanted to see them, whether we even wanted to raise puppies since we had never done so before, etc. They were so cute and figured, why not, they will probably get adopted before we can see them anyway so we turned around and went back inside.
The shelter has you greet the dogs before you adopt so we added our name to the already growing list to see them. I think there were already three or so groups ahead that wanted to see them and by the time we did get to see the them there was probably another three our four groups behind us. The third pup that was in the single kennel had been adopted by the time we were called so we got to play with the two that shared a kennel.
It was really fun to interact with both at the same time and their different personalities became immediately apparent. One pup would bring us toys and play with us. The other pup instead would hide behind the shelter volunteer in the corner until his brother brought him a toy and they began to play together. They were both little black and tan 11 pound fuzzball velociraptors. After that we were sold and made the decision to adopt both.
Adoption was pretty easy, it was only $100 per pup to adopt. The shelter hand named them jack and strike and we chose the names kuzy and nisky after our favorite washington capitals players. The shelter paperwork said they were some sort of GSD mix but they didn't really know what else guessing maybe husky or lab or something. The shelter had already nuttered them which we found sorta odd it was done so early but oh well at least we wouldn't have to pay for it our selves. When we came out into the lobby it was full of people that were also signed up to greet the puppies so we had to break the news they were being adopted and the lobby then pretty much emptied its self.
The drive home was hilarious as we had no idea how to handle puppies. The shelter gave us a simple rope leash that quickly was chewed on. Initially we had put them in the back seat and Kuzy and Nisky promptly found a way to get under the diver and passengers seats. My wife hand to get into the back seat with them to try and coral them for the remainder of the drive. When we got home they scurried into the house and promptly ran and hid under the couch. Having not prepared for adopting puppies I immediately had to run to the store to buy everything we would need. It would be a hilarious few weeks as we slowly figured out how to raise puppies. They are now 4 year old 60 - 80 pound goofballs.
Funny enough, several weeks after adopting during one of their puppy training we would run into someone that knew the family that fostered the mother. They had apparently had the pick of the litter before the rest went to the shelter so we got to see their sister. They had said our dogs were part of a litter of 5 and were GSD husky mixes. Initially they all looked the same. Their sister and Kuzy look exactly like how you would expect a husky GSD mix to look. Black and tan markings, slimmer build, fluffy coat, curly bushy tail, pointy erect ears, a vivid brown almost golden colored eyes, and a head shape what you would expect of a GSD husky mix. Nisky though, looks like maybe moma or papa had some pitty or even lab in the make up, slicker less bushy coat, floppy bat like ears, wider chest, less curly tail but not bushy, and a big fat head. Oddly Nisky has some dichromatism in his eyes so there is definitively some husky in their, with one eye the brown/gold and the other sorta marbled half brown and half icy blue kind of looking like a galaxy.
). They were splitting the puppies into pairs and a group of 3, and we got 