The First Pet Won't Always Do

Ana Monnar once said that our pets are our family. I was the only child before my little sister was born. I could only see dogs in the streets and whenever I went over to my grandmother’s house. My father was never fond of dogs, not even animals. He could not understand why people loved animals.

“They lick their a** and crap in different places,” he said, disgusted by thought of having an animal in your home.

When we went inside the store and we would see a dog, he would press his lips together and roll his eyes. I laughed every time because of how he did it.

“If I owned a store, the first rule would be no pets.”

He and my mother have been divorced for nine years and now it is the three of us. It took my mother leaving my father for us to finally have a dog. It was not our first pet because we had a fish named Rocko. He was orange and tiny. I never cared for fish but for this reason: They are uninteresting.

I have nothing against people who love fish but when they were created, they should have been given a personality or a drive. They are so dull to where you barely notice them. I remember little Rocko because he was the first pet that died.

He passed away due to starvation and that was our mistake, but we are not animal abusers. We forgot all about Rocko for days, until I discovered that something was wrong.

He was floating at the top and the water was not fresh. I moved in closer, and his body was ripped apart. I realized that he was gone.

I was so afraid that I ran to my mother, and she had no idea that he was dead either. The water smelled so bad that she threw her head back. My little sister did not want to look in the glass, so she ran back into her room. Years have passed, and thanks to our Uncle Claudius, our second pet was the gift that kept on giving. My mother wanted a name that we could remember.

I had my own name for her because I always wanted to name a pet after a Greek God which was Athena, but we settled on Bella. That day when Ms. May introduced us to her, she reminded me of an infant. She was fragile and so soft. I was worried that one wrong move and I could drop her and break her skull. In 2023, Bella is still a puppy, but it is like raising an actual child.

She goes into her spells when she does not want to eat her food. She runs around the house like crazy. She sits with her paws down and stares, waiting for you to give her table scraps. Sometimes, Bella can be a bully if you do not give her what she wants. On the good side, she is a lover, protector, and fighter.

She will cuddle next to you while you are sleeping but stingy about who she spends the night with. You would sneak into a room and steal her for yourself, and she will leave and go right back with the other person.

One day, I wanted to find out what breed she was by using an app called Breed Identifier, but it turns out that she was a mixture of different breeds. I do not remember what all of them were, but she was mixed with a Yorkshire and chihuahua.

I was not shocked because our grandmother’s dog is her grandfather and the father of Toby, a dog across the street from our home that Ms. May takes care of.

Animals are just like us when it comes to families. They cannot sit at the dinner table, telling stories that can make you cry or smile but they will always be together.