A true companion dog is a gift of strength, comfort and fun, but finding one doesn’t come at first snout.  My first dog, Pixie, was an amazing shorkie (Shitzu and Yorkshire Terrier mix) and she was supposed to be my dog.  My parents bought her for me as I was growing up and began realizing that I was different.  Pixie was a special friend when the children at school stopped including me.  But, Pixie slowly became our family dog because I was away at school all day. My parents were home more often than I was. And also because Pixie was older, she couldn’t do the three sets of stairs of our three level house. So I was quite lonely and needed a true companion who would live with me in my parent’s basement apartment.

So I decided to get another dog and was looking at others just for fun online. I wasn’t seriously looking, just window shopping. During one night at my friend’s house I was visiting, I saw her – a blackish dog with puppy dog eyes online and she was calling me. Her previous owners had two dogs from the same litter, Emmie and her brother that they adopted from someone else. It was too much for them to handle so they had to give one dog up and decided on Emmie. But they then changed their minds and decided to not sell her.  They changed their minds again. The owner said they would sell her to only me.

After I told my parents, we went to meet with her previous owner and I fell in love with her right away.We bought her that night with her crate and her bowls. Our journey home with her was a challenging one. She didn’t like the car at all and was rambunctious. But eventually we made it home. Right away Emmie wanted to be friends with our older dog Pixie but Pixie never wanted a crazy puppy in the house. So it took them forever to be friends – about two years. It took a while because we had no yard and my cousin was temporarily living with us and we found out my cousin was allergic to Emmie. So Emmie and I bonded for real in my apartment as we had to keep her away from my cousin.

Emmie had a lot of health problems we didn’t know about but the major one was that she has empty stomach syndrome which basically means she has to eat 3 -4 times a day or else she gets sick. She needs food in her system at all times.  But other than that she has been my pal ever since and has helped me through the lonely and scary times of covid.  If it wasn’t for her, and the countless hours together, especially the hours of twirling her ear while I was on the computer, my life would be a lot different. She’s my companion dog and helps me when I need a friend and loves me unconditionally.  I feed her, take her out for walks, play and so much more. We are best friends forever.