The gender scale has tipped a little further...

As if the male gender wasn't already rare enough in our household, the scale just tipped a little farther.
No, we're not expecting a new baby.
We just, well, forgive me: we just retrieved our 2-weeks-missing Golden Retriever from the local animal shelter. Lady is back! And she is happy with all the heartfelt, bubbling-over drooly joy that only a Golden Retriever can muster.
Who even knew that the little town nearby had an animal shelter? Well, apparently one of our neighbors knew when they placed the call to have our sweet Lady dog-napped, but we won't dwell on that. When, by God's good providence, I just happened to hear somebody mention the shelter, I whipped out my trusty green notepad and jotted down the name of the place.
From the beginning, the children were sure that Lady was there, but I tried not to get my hopes up. But I needn't have worried. I did a little sleuthing to acquire the number, called the shelter and left a message, and settled down to wait. Well, if you can't expect a small town to have a listed phone number for the animal shelter, then obviously they won't actually staff the animal shelter.
Three days later, we received an exciting call: there was indeed a sweet young female Golden Retriever at the shelter. The nice lady knew only that she had been there about 10 days. She said that if we could come between 9 AM and noon, we might be lucky enough to find the gate unlocked and the cleaning crew at work. Otherwise, we would need to call the sheriff's department and see if they could spare a deputy to come show us the animal shelter inmates.
Getting viewing privileges was more easily said than done, and involved getting on a first name basis with the sheriff's dispatch, but in the end it all worked out. As soon as we were able, we all piled out of the living room and into the stuffy Suburban; out of the Suburban and into the shelter; back to the Suburban and over to the cold room at the sheriff's department; and back into the now steaming hot Suburban, which would be even steamier when we were joined an hour later by a highly excited, heavily panting, very slobbery golden girl.
But Lady was ours again!
We brought her home, washed off some of the kennel odor (which she seemed very willing to be shed of) and took turns being slobbered upon, while we hatched out new and better plans for keeping a very intelligent and ambitious dog confined. Our dog may be bad, but life is good.