There's an event that happened on one of the dates of this past weekend eight years ago, that changed who I am and my family dynamic. That event happens to be when my now family Chihuahua was born. Before I met him, I didn't particularly care to touch or have anything else to do with any animals, but after having him for a while, that started to change. My family never had any pets other than a couple fish that were my sister's or sea monkey's, so that may have been the reason why I never liked animals.

Only a few hours after his litter was born at the vet's office, the mom's owner, the sister of one of my mom's hygienist's at the time, decided to bring them in to my mom's practice. At this point they were tiny little fur balls. A few weeks later she brought them in again, this time I happened to be there. They were so tiny and cute. Before then, I had never held, let alone liked to pet any cats or dogs, but after holding them, I just fell in love with those puppies.

Then a little while later, my mom decided to bring our whole family over to the owner's house to meet them. At this point it was decided that we would be getting the unique one, the one who was black and white, instead of the typical brown or black,, or combination of the two. I of course wanted the only girl from the litter, but like always, I was outnumbered so I had no say in the matter.

The children of the owner named all the puppies some kind of dessert name, so because the one we picked out was black and white, they named him Oreo, and we never changed it, so as to not confuse him and because it was a very fitting name for him.

When we were over there, and I was holding and cuddling one of the puppies, my sister asked, "Since when do you like/pet animals?" to which I of course answered, "Since I met these puppies." Right around the time that they were ready to go to their new owners, was right before spring break, so we had to wait a couple more weeks until after, so he could get better accustomed to us.

Training him to use the restroom outside and obey a few commands proved challenging, so he really only learned "sit", to which he sometimes still has trouble with. He will only play fetch inside, so seeing him slide to a stop on our wood floors, is amusing. But at least he does know to stand by the door when he want/needs to go outside, and when we say there's any geese or deer or turkeys outside, he perks up to chase them off, which is funny since he's so small compared to them.

Now I couldn't imagine not having him in my life, and can't remember a time when he wasn't a part of our family. And even though my mom threatens basically every day I'm home that she's going to give him away, we all have her outnumber and won't let her; I mean he greets us at the door when we walk in and when no one else does, so just because of that, my dad won't let her get rid of him anytime soon.

He has gotten me through some valleys, but also some hills, and I wouldn't trade him for any other dog, even though he's a little overweight and doesn't know how to walk in a straight line, and only barks when there's visitors or sees people on "our" property. Even though I've grown to appreciate dogs more, I still don't particularly like cats yet, baby steps.