update: we are dumb

So. The puppy has parvo. She's currently at the vet spending money that we should have been putting towards a down payment. The vet figured that she had a 70% chance of making it, and the alternative was having her put down, which the vet assured us is what would happen if we turned her over to the humane society. There was no way that we were going to take home a starving, sick puppy (four months old! seven pounds!) and then put her down. No. I think that's what made the decision for me--the idea that we were going to have to take her home from the vet, give her dinner, and the next day drive her to the humane society where she would die.

Instead we decided to fork over $1000 to treat a dog we had found that same morning. It is very good that Scott and I agree about this kind of thing. We are stupidly fond of animals and not particularly smart about money. I have decided that after year of buying generic oatmeal, cheapo detergent and other products which my economics students learned to identify as "inferior goods" we will have paid for Pepper, and I just hope she's alive at that point. Living with somebody else.

She spent yesterday (pre-vet) on the patio, where she kept us well entertained through the sliding door:

Joseph in particular could not believe his luck in finding another puppy to marvel over:

All four of them were unconvinced that the glass door was entirely solid. There was a lot of pounding/tapping/leaping against it. Damned super-cooled liquid, you destroy our dreams.