After 29 years of waiting, I can finally say that I’ve joined the legions of people that call themselves “dog owners”. This may not be the biggest thing to many people but in my life, this is monumental. I’ve had the fortune of owning many animals; cats, birds, fish, and turtles, but never a dog.
Saturday night is when I met her. My cousin’s neighbor was looking for a home for a ½ Pit Bull ½ Labrador girl. We found out that if they weren’t able to find an owner for this dog, they’d be forced to take it to the Maui Humane Society and put it up for adoption. The story instantly struck a chord with me. Seeing her eyes and her floppy ears instantly made my heart tingle. After a banding of the cousins and a heavy dose of coaxing to the parents, it was official; she was ours.
There is no way that I would have woken up and imagined that I’d be a dog owner by nights end, but I was. Anabelle, Damien, and I MacGyvered together a bed made out of my laundry basket, my shirt was her blanket and another shirt was her mattress. She whimpered halfway through the night because she was too cold. She joined Anabelle and I on the bed and instantly made herself at home. There is not one person in the family that doesn’t love her. She’s been a gift to us all and I hope we’re up to the challenge of raising a dog.
For 12 hours we tried to decide on a name. When we were given her, we were told her name was Oreo. I felt that now that it was our dog, we should rename her. I threw out the name Mele (in Hawaiian it means Merry considering it was the holidays); Anabelle wanted Elle or Ellie simply because she liked those names. Most of the names Damien was throwing out were the stereotypical young boy type names i.e. Killer. As the night ended we decided to sleep on it and finish tomorrow. With Damien on dog-sitting patrol he noticed her nibbling on everything around her. Damien jokingly said he was going to call her Chewbacca. That’s when we all decided on her name.
May I introduce you to CHUY
The newest addition to our family.
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