A few weeks ago I headed to Animal Friends' new digs in the North Hills in search of a story about the invaluable volunteers who come to the rescue of the abandoned, neglected and sometimes abused animals at this no-kill shelter.

I came away with my new best friend. His name is Nash.

A year ago, I visited the Animal Rescue League in East Liberty after I had lost my cocker spaniel. A volunteer there, Ilene Ross, was so sympathetic, and she tried to fill the emptiness I was feeling by alerting me to new arrivals.

I had decided that if I ever got another pet it would come from a shelter, and it would be an older pet.

Puppyhood was for the young.

Perhaps it was too soon. I looked at several but became fearful of the responsibility I had always accepted readily with my other pets. It bothered me that I didn't fall in love with all the dogs immediately, but I had to accept the lack of commitment in my heart. I wasn't ready.

I had been on the board for Animal Friends and have attended benefits for the shelter through the years, so a few weeks ago I decided to take a look at the new Ohio Township facility on Camp Horne Road, which opened just a year ago.

As with the Rescue League, what impressed me even more than the glorious 13 acres of space at Animal Friends were the men and women arriving early in the morning as volunteers, perhaps just to walk the dogs or to help in the gift shop, at the reception desk, wherever they might be needed.

The Caryl Gates Gluck Resource Center at Animal Friends, with its enlarged space, might be fancier and bigger than most, but the spirit of the animal caregivers remains the same as when the shelter was located in the smaller building in the Strip District. Friends to unwanted animals, which began in 1943, became Animal Friends. Beginning of story, not the end.

Visiting the shelter was a risky venture because I had been without a pet for two years. Going where there are many, many dogs and cats (and bunnies) needing homes was not without trepidation.

I'm convinced something took me there that day a few weeks ago. Maybe it was just good luck for both me and Nash.

As I walked around the facility, my heart breaking with each animal I saw needing a home, I tried to be cool and detached. Who was I kidding?

I talked to some volunteers. I reached down to pet more than one sweet animal.

Then, as we ended a tour of the holding area, I saw him -- the very last cage of the tour -- this black and white slightly scruffy dog that had just been brought in as a stray.

I looked and then looked away. But I found myself glancing over my shoulder, then backing up to pet him. Then walking away, then going back again.

"I wonder what his story is?" I asked Jolene Miklas, marketing and communications coordinator, who was giving me the tour.

He stole my heart. Two weeks later I adopted him. I finally was ready to commit for the fifth time in my adult life.

This was a first experience adopting a pet. Animal Friends does a thorough testing for behavior, health and connection between pet and new owner before releasing the animal. I was told he had severe tartar build-up on teeth, suggesting his age, and that he had not been neutered. They do not release an animal before spaying or neutering, and he was also given a series of required shots.

I am following up with a check-up with my own veterinarian.

My son, who has named his 8-month-old dog Lambert for his favorite Steeler Jack Lambert, suggested the name.

He knows my favorite NBA player is the Phoenix Suns' Steve Nash. It was a natural.

So we are going to share our senior years, this sweet pup and I. The vets guess his age as about 7. I'm a double 7 in age.

Maybe it's lucky. I'm writing this column on the seventh day of the seventh month in 2007.