Story Final Draft

What could I have done? The dog house?! How could a ten-year-old do something so terrible to be in the dog house already? At least, I was never alone. I always had company from my partner in crime. Whenever she was around, she always brought such joy and innocence into the atmosphere. In fact, my best memories of her are when I would crawl inside her snug wooden dog house on our porch and cuddle with her in the dark. My yellow Labrador, Angel, would lie on the pillow while I laid my torso and head on her chest. She smelled of the woods and drying mud. It was calming for me to hear her relaxed heartbeat. In fact, sometimes I would be very close to falling asleep until mom called for me. If I didn’t hear mom at first, she would nudge me with her paw or remove her head from mine and lightly lick my forehead. Her heat even comforted me, even though it was during a blazing summer. She never excluded me from joining her by leaving the dog house. Sometimes, I would even swear that she motioned with her head for me to join her. She was always aware of how gently she would place her head upon mine, almost as if I were her puppy and not the other way around. Sometimes, she would become instantly energized and her tail would thrash around, whacking me against my neck and back making me laugh and aware of the exact position of my face to keep from being clobbered. There was the rare occasion that her enthusiasm could no longer be contained within the dog house and we both tried to escape through the hole at the same time and we would get stuck. It usually involved me recoiling into the dog house while pushing her out from behind. Her angelic face always read of laughter when this would happen.

Now imagine a giant eraser comes and wipes out all of the happy memories that I just recalled and all that is left is a lonely child sitting on the floor wishing that she had someone (or something) around her size to talk, romp with, that would accept her no matter what. This would’ve been my fate if my mom hadn’t thought twice about allowing me to have a pet. Mom’s initial reaction about a pet was that she would have to take care of it and that included the food, the vet bills, and the expense, expense, expense. However, she didn’t consider all of the wonderful memories and lessons that I would learn from having a pet. I am a strong believer that children need to have pets in order to have that wonderful bonding experience, so I urge the parents that are considering adopting a pet to view it from all sides, including you’re child’s.