My driving trip to visit friends in Denver was the first I have made in a while without a dog. Zeke was a good traveling companion, and I miss him. Since he died I have taken the seat cover off the back seat, for the first time since I bought the truck. Of course I didn’t bring any of the paraphernalia needed for traveling with a dog. And I had no intention of getting a dog any time soon.

So, all of my friends, who are also dog lovers, suggested that we visit the Dumb Friends League of Denver, a no-kill rescue shelter, to check out the dogs. They had been looking at the online pictures and selected a few to view. I agreed to go see the dogs on Thursday, but I had to constantly remind them: I was going to look at dogs, not for a dog.

The Dumb Friends’ facility in Denver is impressive. It is modern. Each dog has its own large enclosure with glass front so the dogs don’t have to listen to the constant barking of other dogs. As in most pounds and shelters, most of the dogs were pit bulls or pit mixes. Some lay listlessly. Some stared hopefully at passersby. We looked at a couple of medium-sized, non-pit dogs, but neither was really my type.

On Friday we went south from Denver and happened to stop at the Dumb Friends Castle Rock branch, where they had recently taken in a dog they thought was a German Shepherd-Doberman Pinscher mix. Now, it just happens that Leah’s favorite breed is thea German Shepherd, and my favorite breed is the Doberman. But still, I was not at all convinced that I wanted another dog, no matter how appealing it might be.

We signed in and asked to look at this particular dog. They brought her into a visiting room, and we all checked each other out for a while. We took her outside to let her run around in an exterior enclosure. Then we went back inside and I said I wanted to adopt her.

Her name is Zoe. The Denver Dumb Friends had transported her from a shelter in Oklahoma, where, apparently, the general population takes about as much care of their dogs and cats as they do in Georgia, which is not much. The Denver shelter people knew nothing about her history, only that the Oklahoma shelter had given her a rabies vaccination. One of their vets examined her and found her to be in good shape. They found a scar that indicated she has been spayed.

They thought she was a Shepherd/Dobie mix, but didn’t really know. The German Shepherd part is obvious in her head and coloration. The Dobie part is not so obvious.

She has been with us for about 24 hours as I write this. In that time she has shown herself to be a very good dog. She gets along with everyone she meets. She is interested in other dogs, but not overly so. She has met Elroy, the elderly dog that looks so much like Zeke. Elroy is not amused with her presence here, but Zoe has been carefully avoiding him whenever she can.

She asks to go out to relieve herself, which is a big deal. She actually stepped into the bathtub to get a bath — all the dogs we looked at had a peculiar, unpleasant shelter smell. She did not like the bath, but she tolerated it.

The only real problem so far is that she has a very strong prey drive, so she is very interested in small animals that run. And, unfortunately, that category includes cats.

She is constantly in motion, walking around the house, checking out everything and everyone, looking for food, avoiding Elroy, so it has been hard to get a good photo that is not blurred. We took her for two good walks on Saturday, which apparently tired her enough that she actually plunked herself down for a while.

This is the best way to show her size at this point.

She is about 80 pounds, and long and lean. She may be part Doberman. The tail looks Dobermanish, a hard judgement to make given that undocked Doberman tails are so rare. One woman who saw her on one of our walks said she looked like a German Shepherd/ Doberman mix, so maybe she is.

It is possible that she is a little over a year old, as the shelter says, but it is also possible she is a little older. It is also possible that she is a little younger, which means she may not have reached her full growth.

Her manners are not good. She tends to want to eat food out of your hand just as you are placing that food into your mouth. She pulls too much on the leash. But these are things that she can learn about as she lives with us.

She slept by my bed Friday night in a bed we made from a foam pad and a fleece throw. She was calm, and slept the night through, only stirring to circle and lie down again, as dogs usually do.

At this point she usually comes by to check on me on her rounds, and seems concerned when I close the door into the bathroom, so even at this early stage she seems to understand that we are going to be a pair.

I bought her a good collar and two types of leashes. She has a food bowl and a water bowl for the almost 1400-mile trip back to Georgia. I have told Leah that I will not be coming home alone, and she seems OK with that. She is a little worried about how Zoe and Mollie will get along, but I think we can convince Zoe that Mollie is part of the pack.

The shelter named her Zoe, so we could change her name if we wanted to. I was concerned that Leah wouldn’t want to name her Zoe, since that was the name of the cat she had when we got married, and who disappeared in the night a few years ago. But she seems OK with that name, so I guess we’ll keep it.

I’m looking forward to some things. I hope Zoe and Sam become friends and can sleep and play together like Sam and Zeke did. I hope that Zoe becomes a part of our family. So far she seems like a very good dog.