The woman behind the desk at Animal Services knew which dog we were looking for. We had picked a good time to adopt, she said, as it was a discount weekend. The normal charge of two hundred dollars would be halved. Rescue dogs require vaccines and accumulate other expenses so adoption isn’t free, which is a good thing. My adoption adventure was looking blessed indeed. She disappeared behind a door and into a cacophony of barks, yelps and howls.

When the door swung back a few minutes later, a scrawny, less than furry creature charged out, pawing the tiled floor like a miniature stallion. “He jumped over a five foot wall last night,” exclaimed the attendant as she tried unsuccessfully to calm the bouncing dog.

“ It’s the second time he’s done that,” she continued. “We had put him in another pen so he couldn’t get out! ”

My heart sank. This was not what I needed. My friend Sandy read the disappointment on my face.

“I’m afraid this is more than I can take on.” I said. The attendant nodded in understanding and then added: “You’re allowed to take him home for a few days.” “If it doesn’t work out you can bring him back.”

I looked at Sandy who, always the optimist, proffered that this was a good solution given the noise and stress of the place. Maybe the dog would settle down once we got him out of there. I wasn’t so sure but had to agree the kennel was stressful. I decided to give it a try and moments later was literally dragged out the door by a frenzied skeleton who wanted nothing more than to escape.

He shook all the way home despite being cradled in Sandy’s arms. It was minus twenty-one on a cold December day. The little guy only weighed nineteen pounds. That was eight pounds more than the day he’d been rescued. We got him into the house and he immediately sniffed his way into and out of every room. He was still vibrating but at least the panting had stopped.

We put a blanket on the couch and coaxed him onto it. He looked at us warily as we stroked his bony frame and told him in soft voices that he was safe. He promptly rolled on his back and belly up, legs akimbo, went to sleep. He slept most of the afternoon. I put my down vest around him to keep him warm when I took him out later. Then he went back to the couch and slept again. By this time I knew he was going to stay.

We called him LUCA, an acronym for the first cell that initiated life as we know it. Sandy had learned about it while on sabbatical in Ireland. Scientists refer to that cell as our ‘ Last Universal Common Ancestor’. So in effect it had led to the creation of Luca as well as me. I had rescued one of my relations. It was meant to be.

Today, eight years on, Luca weighs 38 pounds and has rich golden fur and suffers from what we call ‘terminal cuteness’. He rarely leaves my side and to be honest, I rarely leave his. It is a match made in heaven. Of course it is. God is dog spelled backwards after all.