When I was three years old I accidentally kicked a dog in the face while I was swinging. That dog ended up being the one my family and I brought home and he became my best friend. His name was Rocket.

Look at him. He's the cutest, the best dog any family could have asked for. Sure, he would chew on socks and pens when we would leave the house. And yeah, he would hop the fence to go into the neighbor's yard. Also, I can't deny and tell you that he didn't regularly run away from us (he always came back).

I'll never forget this one particular memory when I was probably five or six. Rocket was missing, and we set up a search party to go find him. We had to have been searching for more than an hour before deciding to return home, with the hope that he was there, waiting for us. Instead, come to discover, he was trapped in the garage the entire time.

He would always run up to me when I got home from school. When I was practicing pitching for softball outside with my dad, he would always run around in our backyard and try to play catch with us. He always wanted to be in front, pulling my mother when we would take him for walks. He would always lay next to my family and I while we were watching TV, and he would make that cute little face and beg for food when we were all eating dinner. As every dog does.

When he got older, and eventually the time came for us to put him down...I couldn't even go to the animal hospital. It was too difficult for me to be apart of that. I was losing my best friend that had been there for me every day for 13 years. He dealt with the little kids pulling on his years and the long days when we would leave him for family occasions or vacations.

A dog is more than just a dog, they're a part of your family. They are the only thing in the world that love you unconditionally and do everything in their power to make you happy and feel appreciated. Dogs are a gift to humankind. My dog spent his entire life being there for my family. We loved him and he loved us, probably more.

So, if you have a dog, please, please, please give them some love right now. From me and you.