Ever since I was a little girl, all I ever wanted was a puppy. Yet, there was one slight problem. I was allergic–and I mean highly allergic. I was allergic to basically anything and everything with four legs back in those days: Dogs, cats, horses, you name it.
At about seven years old, I distinctly remember going over to one of my friend's houses for a playdate after school. I'm not entirely sure if I was excited for the play date or the fact that we would be spending the entire time at her house with her very big and very beautiful black lab. Later that day, I got into my mom's car with blood-shot eyes, a slight wheeze, and I was itching from head to toe.
"You're going to need a Benadryl, you know," she said to me softly.
"No, Mom! I'm fine!" I snapped back.
Every Christmas, it was already known well in advance what I was asking for that year. And every year I got the same response.
"You can't get a puppy if you can breathe around it," my parents would tell me.
"I'll get used to it!" I kept trying to persuade them.
Christmas came and went and every year I'd end up with a different variation of a "puppy". The first few years were stuffed animals. One of them was so big that he was as long as the width of my bed. As years went by, the dog gifts turned into interactive games where I could "buy" my own puppy and take care of them in my own little virtual world. This was supposed to keep me satisfied and fill the puppy void.
When Christmastime came around in the eighth grade, I remember–yet again–reminding my mom just how much I wanted a puppy. This year, she actually entertained the idea.
"Hypo-allergenic puppies are a thing, you know?" she said to me as we sat in our living room, googling all the different types of puppies that I wouldn't be allergic to. Even though she entertained the idea, I could tell that she was nowhere near serious about actually getting a family dog.
I somehow convinced her to go to the puppy store "just to look" at what they had. I walked in and saw rows and rows of sweet little puppies through little glass windows, all bunched together. We immediately went into the play center, where the store worker brought us all the puppies that we stopped to look at one by one.
I remember having two teeny-tiny little dogs in both my hands as I heard from around the corner, "Katherine, LOOK!"
As I looked up, I saw my Mom at the glass of one of the dog pens, pointing to the cutest little brown ball of fluff.
"This is the same exact breed we saw online!" she squealed.
Before I knew it, we were both sitting on the floor of the playpen with the cute little brown ball of a puppy. He was nothing but pure energy and spunk. Every couple of minutes, we found ourselves giggling over something funny or clumsy that he did. I knew at that exact moment that I was absolutely in love with this little thing and that I would need to do some major convincing if I really wanted to bring him home.
After several minutes of unsuccessful persuading, I sat on the floor of the puppy store in tears. I was completely defeated and knew that nothing I said would change my mom's mind.
"I just don't know if we can handle having a puppy right now," she kept telling me. "It's a really big commitment."
As I got into the car, the tears came rushing down my face. "He's just so perfect," I kept repeating.
Needless to say, by the time we got back home, there was already deposit down on the cute little ball of brown fluff that we both aimlessly fell in love with.
Eight years later, the little brown ball of fluff isn't so little anymore. In fact, he's not even brown. His body is now covered with tan and white little spiral curls. On his ears are the remnants of what we knew as the little brown dog.
I am endlessly grateful for the day that we took a trip to a puppy store "just to look". It gave me my best friend and a million happy memories with the dog that I have always dreamed of.
