In the early part of my childhood, I never considered asking for a dog. I was always scared of how aggressive they seemed to be, and was afraid that they would hurt me. In fourth grade, my family decided to get a dog. We got one and it was the cutest little thing ever, but it was also very wild and aggressive. It’s name was Miller but we changed it to Sheamus. After we had it for 4 weeks, my parents had had enough of him not listening or being easy to train, so they decided to get rid of him. It was one of the saddest moments of my life.  It wasn’t until the summer going into sophomore year of High School, that my family would have another one as a pet. It started when my brother asked if we can get a dog. I was immediately opposed to the idea, because I did not think there were any good reasons to have one. I also didn’t want to put in the effort for taking care of one. I argued about getting one with my parents and brother, telling them I felt that we were not able to take care of a dog, and we would just end up taking him back making me sad again. However my argueing did not get me anywhere, and my parents said we were getting one. I had no choice but to deal with it, and planned on not having anything to do with the dog. A couple weeks later my family told me they were going to look at dogs and asked if I wanted to go. I refused and told them I did not care about the dog. A week later I was away for the weekend at my lake house, and my dad came up with a new dog. The first time I saw him I was in the kitchen looking out the window, and saw him hop out of the car along with my dad. I was surprised to see him because I didn’t know that we were getting a dog so soon.  My dad brought him inside and he ran over to me sniffing me, along with everything else in the house. I didn’t pet him and tried to avoid him even when he came over by me trying to get attention. Even after we had him I still would tell my parents it was a bad idea and that we wouldn’t be able to train him, so I didn’t want to get too attached if we would have to take him back, so I did my best not to interact with him. The dog’s name when we got him from the shelter was Herbert, but we decided to change his name. After long debating, we decided on the name Leo. I would pet him but still had the idea in my mind that we were eventually going to take him back, like we did with our last dog. Over the next couple weeks of having Leo, I started to get used to him being around. One day when I came home from, work nobody was home except for me and the dog. I sat down and he came over and I started petting him. I started to think that I should try to get used to this dog, because maybe it was another chance for us to have one as a pet. It was then that I decided to help train this dog so he could be good and we wouldn’t have to return him. I started teaching him simple obedience like how to sit and stay. The more I trained him the more I started to like him. He was a golden retriever and still was only a couple months old so he was awfully small, and ready to be taught. I My family and I thought he was the cutest dog in the world, and I really started to enjoy him being a part of my life. I began to enjoy petting him and playing fetch with him. He has been difficult to teach some things, since he is a very eager dog.  After a while I was the one in my family to spend the most time with him, and taught him to do plenty of things. I started growing more and more fond of him being around the house, and enjoyed taking him for walks or outside to play fetch. His favorite thing to do was be taken to our lake house, because he had plenty of free space to roam around up there.  I realized that at this point in owning him, my family wouldn’t take him back. He had been trained better than our previous dog and was much easier to control. Although I miss the dog we had when I was little, I am glad that we have gotten another one as a pet, and have grown to love and appreciate him.