Andrew and I (okay, it's more me) are looking at adopting a young dog sometime soon. In pursuit of this, we headed down to the Berkeley Animal Services shelter yesterday, which is an annoying BART + bus + walking affair they've stuck down by the train tracks and the marina in the ass of the city.
We go there, and lo and behold! There is a beautiful 10 month old Australian Shepherd mix puppy -- good with cats, good with dogs, loves people, etc., etc. So we take her out to the play area, spend some time with her and fall in love. We go to the front desk to fill out paperwork and adopt the puppy, yay!
Of course, they want paper proof that our building is pet friendly. It is unfortunate because it takes BART + bus + walking to get home, and the same again to get back -- probably 1.5 hours round-trip IF the transport is back-to-back on time. They close in 15 minutes. Frowny face! We ask if we can have her put on hold and come back first thing tomorrow. We're told that, no, they can't do that, but it's highly unlikely that she'll get adopted in the last 15 minutes of the day, just make sure to be in when they open on Sunday.
You can see where this is going.
So I get up early today (SUNDAY, mind you), go to my leasing office to get the letter of permission/make deposits/etc., and then jump on the BART. The buses are being bitchy so we walk. We're about 5 blocks away and it's 5 minutes until they open, so I give them a call and ask if they can --
"Oh. She's adopted? In the last 15 minutes of yesterday?"
Yes. Yes indeed. We walk all the way down anyway, talk to the receptionist (not the same as yesterday's). She's very sorry, but the adoption went through at 16:23 local time. ... the shelter closed at 16:00, didn't it? Oh, yes, she says, but if an adoption is started before close they go ahead and finish it.
So yeah. That bitch of a receptionist who wouldn't hold the dog for 15 minutes adopted it to someone else.
Way to make me inclined to visit your shelter and get an animal there, Berkeley.
