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"Off to go on the cutest adventures!"

But that's not how it works. If you want to rescue a dog in Los Angeles, you have to fill out more forms than I filled out to apply for college. You need to tell them what your job is like and how much money you make, and you need to provide a number of references who aren't members of your family. Which is weird, because I don't know how any of my friends would know if I'm good at not killing dogs. None of them are qualified to vouch for me as a dog raiser, but I provided them as references anyway, hoping they knew that, if someone called and asked if I seemed like the kind of guy who would murder dogs, the answer was "No" and not "I'm not with him 24 hours a day, so I can't be sure."

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Once I filled out all of the forms and did a character interview with the person who runs the shelter ("What kind of person do you think you are?" "The kind who is still holding a sweaty fistful of money and desperately wants the dog you're carrying."), I was sent home, dogless. I had to wait a week while they processed my forms and then wait another week for a representative to come to my apartment and make sure it was safe for dogs.

The only thing the apartment-checker told me, by the way, was "Good, there's no poison lying around." Sort of seems like the kind of thing that should have come up during the character interview, but fine.

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I passed all of their tests, but didn't get this dog, because ...