Ever since I moved out of my parent’s house, I missed our family dog and missed having a dog of our own. As I grew up having a dog as part of our family I learned to love dogs. My motto is “I can’t live without dogs”.
So a few months after moving into “Homes giving Hope” when our other roommate moved in we got the opportunity to get a house dog! We got to pick a house dog for the house. You can imagine my excitement. I always said I wanted a dog of my own but boy am I glad I didn’t go through with that. I didn’t realize what a huge responsibility it would be to have a dog of my own and have to take care of it myself. Don’t get me wrong I would love to have my own dog someday but sharing it with others first is good practice before making that big step of dog ownership.
With all the dog lovers out there you may know all the big responsibilities. So Homes Giving Hope decided to let me pick out the dog for the house. Kay, my Mom, and a few other ladies came out to “Paws With a Cause” that day to help pick out the dog. I remember that day very well.
It was a cloudy, rainy summer day. A bit on the chilly side. I remember I, unfortunately, wasn’t feeling well that day. I was kinda sick. That was a bummer but it was still a very exciting day to pick out the house dog. We first met the people who were going to take us on the tour and we got to see a few service dogs and the kind of work they could do. It was very cool to see. The dogs are trained to help people with all kinds of challenges
Then we went to the room where we would pick out our dog. I was very excited to hear that there were only golden retrievers to choose from. I have always wanted a golden retriever so it worked out well!
First, 2 girl golden retrievers came out to meet us and they were all very excited and hyper to meet us all. Then the last dog we met was a blonde golden retriever. He was a boy and he was very sweet. He was very excited to meet us but also chill at the same time. He squeaked and kind of cried when he met us. He stole my heart and I knew he was the right one. Even though I wanted a girl golden retriever this was the dog God picked out for “Homes Giving Hope”. Another reason I was really happy to get a dog is that dogs have always helped me with my anxiety. I have a generalized anxiety disorder as well as 22q Deletion Syndrome. Which is more of a hidden disability in most people who have it.
So… some of the responsibilities of having a dog are:
- Keeping an eye on it at all times (especially when it’s a puppy) they get into everything
- Keeping your room cleaned if you’re going to let the dog in your room so it doesn’t get into anything like your trash.
- Taking turns with roommates to take care of the dog.
- Making sure the dog gets let outside a fair amount of times during the day.
- Make sure your dog gets exercise to stay healthy.
- Give your dog lots of love!