The Best Dog Ever

Everyone thinks that their dog is the best dog. This is true, for everyone. When I got my dog, he changed my life. He taught me a whole new type of love.

Before I got a dog, I had cats. I liked cats. Honestly, I still sometimes like cats more because there are some dogs that I just can't stand. At the time, I couldn't stand any dogs though. I didn't want a dog.

However, I had to get a dog if I wanted any animal at all, because my parents only wanted one animal and my brother wanted a dog. So, towards the end of 2010, we began going to and looking at dogs at the shelters.

This was around Christmas time, so we said that it would be a Christmas present dog.

Our dog was not meant to be a Christmas present.

There was one dog we thought we might adopt. He was nice enough. I mean, I wasn't totally convinced, but I also didn't believe I could be convinced of any dog. So, I accepted that this would be the one. Except the shelter made us wait.

Still, we thought we were getting this one, and he had a terrible name, so we began thinking of names to replace it with.

We never got the chance to rename him because he wasn't the right dog. Our dog was still waiting.

After the shelter wouldn't give us that dog, we went back to looking, Christmas now having passed.

We went to shelters again on New Year's Eve, my family and I spending the hours before the new year of 2011 looking for our new family member.

One shelter we went into was Citizens for Animal Protection (CAP). There were several dogs there that I didn't pay too much attention to. There was also an empty cage, the papers it carried telling me that the dog that normally would be there was a chihuahua mix.

Well, I knew chihuahuas. They bark at everyone. They're mean. I wouldn't have wanted him anyway.

Next, we went to PetSmart, where there are sometimes animals visiting from shelters to be adopted. Only one shelter was there that day, with many cats in the small room, and one little dog sitting by the lady at the desk. I went to go look at the cats.

However, when I came back out, I met that one dog. He was actually from the shelter we'd just come from. He was the one from the empty cage, the chihuahua mix.

Surprisingly, he was calm and friendly. He was not what I expected. The lady even said that he never barked, and he didn't, at first.

As I petted him for that first time, I remember being concerned about all the fur that he was getting on me, while, at the same time, I was wearing a shirt that day that got glitter all over him.

My dad began filling out his paperwork and a PetSmart employee joyously told the dog, "Joey! You're finally getting adopted!" He had a discounted fee because he'd been waiting at the shelter for over a month.

We brought him home that same day, hours before our New Years Even party, and everyone else followed him around, fussing about the new dog. I, however, left him alone to discover his new home, and he jumped right up on the couch to be with me. While I hadn't been sure about him right away, he was already sure of me. It didn't take long before he was following me everywhere and sleeping right next to me in my bed.

He got along with everyone that first night, even with a party going on, but it did turn out that he only "never barked" at the shelter. Once he realized that he was home and this was his family, his true personality came out. He barks at the doorbell. He barks at strangers in our house. He barks at anyone he thinks is fighting with me, even if we're only hugging. Though he used to bark at my brother, if he ever barks at me or any of his other family members by accident (because he hears the door and thinks its an intruder before we walk in), he'll whine in apology to us.

Because he does bark at others, everyone who visits probably still thinks he's a "mean chihuahua", but he changed my mind about dogs by showing me the kind of love a dog can give.

I remember with a cat, I'd always be searching the house looking for where she was hiding, but I can always find Joey. He's usually right by my side. Well, that is unless he's waiting by his food bowl because I forgot "second dinner", waiting on the catwalk because somebody in the family is not home yet and he needs to look out the window for them to arrive, or still in bed/his kennel/the couch because maybe he noticed I left the room, but he's being lazy.

I remember times when a cat has scratched me for absolutely no reason. My Joey dog has never bit at me, never been aggressive with me at all. Other people are a different story, but still, he's defensive or protective, not aggressive. I see how he retreats at the same time while barking. The only time he's not so nice it with kids, but I get it.

Also, when I accidentally step on him or hurt him in some other way, he instantly forgives me for my mistake. When I come down to give him pets to apologize, he's crawling towards me as if he's trying to apologize himself.

When I was at college and had to leave him at home with my family for weeks at a time while I stayed at the dorms, I knew how much he missed me because of how he would try not to let me leave again after being gone for so long. If I then thought of even going to the store without him, he'd be running out the door. Normally, he would never go out unless told he could come. Even with me back home now, he greets me at the front door when I return from anywhere. He's always just as excited as the last time I came home.

8 years of Joey: 12/31/2010 and 12/31/2018

I think about what led us to pick him, how easily we could have gotten a different dog or simply passed him by. If the shelter had let us have that first one, if I'd simply passed him by for being a "mean chihuahua", or if we'd never even met him at all if he hadn't been waiting just long enough at the shelter for the right people to find him, I wouldn't have Joey.

We might have still found another good dog and he might have still gotten a loving family, but I'm so glad it was us.

He taught me the kind of unconditional love that I don't believe you could find anywhere else but in a dog. And he's not just any dog. Joey is the best dog ever.

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