Friday, October 06, 2006
The Shayna Curse
There is an anomaly in the video game universe called "The Madden Curse." Every year a new John Madden football game (the most popular football series out there) is released to reflect team changes from season to season. Each year a well know, talented player is selected to be featured on the cover of the cases the games come in. Each year something horrible, often an injury, happens to whatever player graces that cover.There is a portion of our website called 'Staff Picks.' We each select a cat or a dog we particularly like to be featured on the page with us. In the last several months I have had four or five staff picks. Every one of them, seemingly perfect dogs at the time, have been pulled out of adoptions or quickly adopted out and returned for a behavior problem. Some have been able to return to adoptions with some training and evaluations and have happy endings. Others have not.
My most recent staff pick was taken off of our website when she was adopted (only a week or so after we took our picture together), and was returned within a few days for growling at a member of the household. I never in a million years expected this to happen. We're working with her now, she may still have a happy ending, but I don't know for sure.
Today I need to choose a new staff pick. I want to do it because I love featuring animals that are special to me on our website, but I have to say I'm a little nervous. If I choose a great dog, even one who has consistently been a great dog for months, will something go wrong? How will I break the Shayna curse?
