When I was in the second grade, my parents decided to let us get our first dog. We made the decision to adopt from our local animal shelter and that was definitely the best decision we made. By adopting this little ball of golden fur, we saved her life.
We named her Riley and she lived a long life. Unfortunately, she died from cancer when she was nine. Even though everyone in my family was upset when Riley died, we knew that she lived a much longer life than she would have if she were in the shelter.
A couple years before Riley died we adopted another dog. A 6-month-old chocolate lab, we named him Cooper. When we got him, he was so skinny that his head was huge compared to the rest of the body and you could see his ribcage. He was sluggish when we first got him due to malnourishment. We had hardly walked into our vets office before they told us we needed to feed him and feed him a lot. It made me really angry to think that he was so malnourished because someone just left him somewhere until he was eventually picked up and brought to the animal shelter. I just don’t understand how someone could do this to such a sweet animal. Cooper would never hurt a soul and someone just left him there to die.
A year ago we adopted another dog. We decided Cooper needed another friend. He took Riley’s death as hard as we did. So we went back to the animal shelter and adopted a black fur ball. He was literally just a ball of fuzzy, black fur with an adorable face. How could we leave him there after seeing that face? My mom and sister hadn’t even asked what my dad and I thought of him before they started the paperwork to adopt him. He’s a stinker and he gets into everything. He’s the first dog we’ve had that actually likes to chew things up. We were spoiled with our first two dogs. Jake showed us how it really is to have a puppy in the house, but we wouldn’t trade him for the world. He’s a year old now and he has the nickname Chubs because he’s, well, chubby. He still has that adorable face though.
My three shelter dogs have taught me about second chances and about being kind in general. My three dogs and the thousands of other dogs that are in shelters across the country are all deserving of a loving home. I can’t stress enough how important it is to consider adopting a shelter dog if you are looking into getting a dog. Don’t believe what you hear about them, my family has adopted three shelter dogs and all of them are just as lovable as can be. These dogs deserve a second chance and you could be the one to give it to them.
