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How To Save A Life

Let me introduce you to the best birthday present I ever received: Henry!

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As an animal-lover, I’ve always loved going into Petsmart on Saturdays.  Well, loved and hated it at the same time.  You see, Saturdays are adoption days at Petsmart, which means the store is filled with adorable little critters in desperate need of a loving home.  Visits to the store would play out like this:

CCK: Mom, can we please adopt a dog?  Pleeeease?
Mom: Katie, we have a dog.  Molly would not be happy if we forced her to share the limelight with another dog.
CCK: But otherwise they’ll go back to the shelter, and many of them will be put to sleep!
Mom: Don’t think about it; it’s too sad, and we really can’t adopt another dog.  Your dad wouldn’t allow it.

About a week before my eighteenth birthday, Molly needed dog food.  A trip to Petsmart was in order.  And it just so happened to be a Saturday.  By now, I knew not to even ask if we could adopt one of the wide-eyed, tail-wagging pups at the store.  Resigned to my one-dog life, I silently cuddled with an especially-spunky puppy.  So my jaw almost fell through the floor when:

Mom: Would you like to take him home?
CCK: That’s really mean.  You know how much I want to save one; why would you joke about something like that?
Mom: What if I’m not joking?  It’s almost your 18th birthday.
CCK: (Still not letting herself believe it.)  You said Dad wouldn’t go for it.  Nor Molly.
Mom: I don’t know, Katie.  He’s really cute.  Your dad couldn’t stay mad at a face like that for long.  And I bet Molly would at least tolerate him, if not learn to love him.

And so…

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It always makes me sad to see all the dogs for sale in pet shops (mostly from puppy mills). Why buy a puppy when you can rescue one as cute as Henry?  It’s cheaper and you’re saving a life! Henry came from an abusive home, so he was terrified of people, animals, and especially feet when we first brought him home.  In fact, it was months before we even knew he could bark.  But the poor (well, not anymore) guy has come a long way.  Nowadays, he is the ultimate lap dog, ad you can’t stop him from giving you kisses!

Published on September 13, 2009

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  1. Katie says

    My dog is a rescue dog too!! We got Maddie about five years ago from a shelter, and she had been left alone a lot so she had big abandonment fears… but she got over that soon because with us, three teenagers who’d never had anything more than a goldfish before, she wasn’t left alone for an instant! =D Now she’s happy and crazy and wonderful. Give Henry a hug for me!!

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