My daughter works at a local Petco, and one weekend in January, her store hosted an adoption event with one of the local animal shelters. When my wife picked her up at work, they decided to meet some of the dogs at the event. They took one look at Max, and his soulful brown eyes, and called me. Having never had a dog, I was dubious about adopting one. I met them down at the event, took one look at him, and said, “Sign the papers”.
We found out that he was in the shelter for 6 months. He was stressed out, heartbroken, and weighed only 45 lbs. Within two weeks of signing his adoption papers, I was laid off from my job of 17 years, and my father passed away. Those were by far the two biggest events in what has been a tumultuous year.
Everything became crystal clear about a month after we adopted him. I came home after having a rough day – upset, tears streaming down my face. Max initially looked like he was in the mood to jump around and start playing, but instead jumped up on the couch next to me, and started to lick away my tears. It was that moment that Max stopped being just a good dog, and instead became my dog.
To say that he has bonded with us is an understatement. For everything that has happened, I still consider 2014 to be a good year, because of Max. We set out to rescue him, but he ended up rescuing us.
