It was a Saturday in September and I left the house early to make it to a volleyball scrimmage, we lost quite unceremoniously and I rushed right home to collapse on the couch both from exhaustion and embarrassment. A couple of hours later I feel a cold wet touch at my cheeks and swat it away. It persists, this time landing on my eyelids and I attempt to swat (what I at the moment thought was my pestering older brother) away with more ferocity. Yet this time my hands were met with fur and my ears with a faint whimper. I opened my eyes to find a tiny pure white Maltese staring up at me just looking for a spot on the couch. I was 16 years old at the time and I remember that moment vividly. Now I know what you're thinking, there aren't that years between 16 and 21 so I can't have forgotten so soon but I still think it's worth saying that that moment was pretty special. There was no fanfare or ceremony.
Boobie, the white Maltese, has been with my family ever since. We quickly learned that the his previous family had not been as loving as they pretended to be. Boobie flinched at even the slightest move of your hand and was constantly nervous. He'd never been fully house trained and whenever he had an accident we'd find him hiding so far under the couch all you could see were his eyes reflecting in the light. He'd also only been feed hot dogs all his life and the vets were forced to remove almost all his teeth.
Adapting to life with Boobie was tough, building up his confidence and battling his health concerns were hurdles in the start. He wasn't properly house trained and every accident prompted him to hide under the couch. He was scared of loud noises and as a family who has a habit of dancing around, pretending to wrestle each other, and being downright absurd sometimes, it took some getting used to when we had to consider how much he wanted to be on our laps but how he really didn't want to wrestle with us. But I'm pretty sure I speak for my entire family when I say it was the best thing we could have ever done.
Fast forward about a year and a half later, that July my best friend had adopted a small black kitten named shadow and for months he was all I could talk about. A classmate mentioned that her cat had recently had kittens and she was searching for homes for them and I was determined to bring one home. So I did. That's when I met Memphis Joe. When I opened the box to find the tiny baby inside my heart melted and every moment with him has been beyond what I could have ever imagined. Well, almost every moment. You see Memphis is a trouble maker. There was the time he got into a crawlspace and ripped out one entire side of his whiskers. Or the time he knocked down my dad's blu-ray dvd player right in the middle of movie night. Or even the time I came home to find everything knocked off my dresser and him hanging out at the top of the door frame. Memphis gets into everything. He steals your food, runs full speed across the apartment and tries to wrestle meek little Boobie. But there's one thing, there's always laughter in my home with him and even when I'm home alone, he's right by my side.
Now I know you're wondering why I've spent so much time on my own pets when I surely came to talk about other pets who need homes. My experience is just one in the ocean of joys that surround adopting homeless animals. There are struggles, which cannot be ignored, but the joy and love these animals bring surpasses all of that. So the next time you're thinking of bringing a furry friend into your home (after making sure you've assessed and are confident in your ability to care for one of course) visit a shelter and give one of those dogs, cats, rabbits, birds or horses (space permitting) a forever home.
Check out your local shelter for a fur baby of your own
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