The Time I Got a Dog

It was September and I was in grade 11; by this time my sister and me had accepted the fact that we were never going to get a dog. My dad's work friend proposed that we get a pug puppy because her daughter's dog had just had a litter. My dad jokingly asked and of course we begged him to get one for us, but my dad dismissed the idea, because he did not want something tiny licking his shoes.

Then, of course we had forgotten the subject entirely and October came and went and finally November came. It was a snowy day and above all it happened to be my birthday. We had just finished eating my birthday dinner, which quite frankly I forgot what it was. As tradition goes, I posed for pictures with the cake, so everyone would remember the day. The candles were all lit and I was about to blow out the candles and that's when the phone rang. It was a phone call from our family friends, who happened to be vets. They told my dad over the phone that a lady client of theirs brought in a dog and she wanted to get rid of it sometime and she gave up, so she turned to the vets to have him put down. Yes, this dog is completely healthy and she wanted to put him down. The vet friends of ours told her that's ridiculous and they wanted to give the dog another chance of finding an owner. So, my dad oddly enough said "we will have a look and see" and I could see my mother face drop. She did not want a dog for our house was already small as it was and adding a dog would make a mess.

We ate some cake and then headed for their house and while in the car, my sister and me got my dad to talk about his own dog he once had. We arrived at the house and we saw the smallest little dog ever, he was a chihuahua and was trembling because he was afraid, yet excited to see these new people. My dad took one look at the dog and he absolutely fell in love with the little guy. He made the baby faces and everything and the dog had also fallen for my dad. It was love at first sight.

Then, we took him home and for the drive home, he was whimpering and shaking probably afraid that we were taking him to be left somewhere. We opened his kennel in my room and he roamed around sniffing everything, but he refused to be picked up. We gave him some space for about a week before introducing him to our cat. The cat did not like this new comer. He was all over the place and did not pay attention to where his tail was going and she scratched him a few times. My cat was a tough one to get close to, she did not like being touched so much and our new dog, Nacho, wanted to be best friends with her but she felt differently about him. Now our Nacho is our dog and our cat passed away last summer and he missed her when she was gone. He did not eat and he realized someone was missing from the household. This is the story of how we got our first chihuahua. Some people can be cruel and not let a pet live simply because she did not want him. The lady, we later found out, was keeping her other chihuahua and getting rid of Nacho. That day on my birthday, my dad also became my hero because he saved my dog's life.