Adopted friend shows true companionship
Adopted friend shows true companionship
My baby is growing up.
Yoshi turns 10 on Friday. We will celebrate with a nice, big walk through the neighborhood and extra scoops of dog food in his bowl. He'll get belly rubs, more treats and lots of hugs. We'll sing "Happy Birthday" to him and present him with a plate of steamed rice -- his favorite.
Friday will be Yoshi's day.
Oct. 23 marks the day that I adopted Yoshi from the animal shelter. Since he didn't have an official birthdate, I made his adoption day his birthday. So, on that day, we celebrate both Yoshi's life and the day he changed mine.
I've had Yoshi for five of his 10 years, but it feels like he's been with me forever. He came into my life at a time when I needed companionship. It was 2004, and I was living in Michigan, suffering from a broken heart and feeling depressed about where I was in my life. But most of all, I was lonely.
In the back of my mind, I always wanted to own a dog, but I was 24, living off a meager reporter's salary and barely getting by. But somehow, I found myself making weekly trips to the Humane Society on the edge of town with no serious intentions of adopting a dog, until that Thursday afternoon when I found Yoshi.
Although the rest of the dogs barked in their cages, Yoshi sat quietly and patient. His eyes struck me first -- so gentle and kind. I crouched down in front of his cage and slipped my fingers through his crate. He walked over to me, lowered his head and rubbed it against my fingers. My heart melted right there. I gazed up at the name tag on his crate: Soldier. "You don't look like a Soldier to me," I told him. I sat for a few minutes and petted his head. When I walked away to look at the other dogs, Yoshi watched me the whole time. I kept glancing back at him and saying hello. I never thought love at first sight could happen with a dog, but it happened to me.
I took him out of his crate that day, and we sat in a room together to get to know each other. I tossed him a ball, but he seemed disinterested. Instead, he crawled under a chair and laid down on the cold concrete floor. His papers didn't describe his history, but it was clear he was hurting.
That day, when I left the shelter, I couldn't stop thinking about him. I'd look up his photo online several times a day and show him to my friends at work. I went back the next day to see him one more time, and that night over a glass of red wine, I wrote up a list of potential names for him ---- he didn't strike me as a Soldier. The next day, I went to adopt him.
I got to the shelter 10 minutes before it opened. I wanted to be first in line to adopt him. When I told the receptionist I was there to adopt Soldier, she said in a blasé tone, "Soldier is off site this morning at an adoption fair."
My heart stopped.
I asked for directions to the fair, then ran to the car. As I flew down the interstate, I almost started to cry thinking that someone else had adopted him. But, like a mantra, I kept telling myself, "If he's there, then it was meant to be."
When I finally arrived, I saw Yoshi in the distance on a leash, being led away from the building. I was too late. When a volunteer approached me, I choked back tears as I told her I was here to adopt Soldier, "but it looks like I'm too late." She looked out into the distance and replied, "Oh, no, that's just a volunteer."
It was meant to be.
After I signed Yoshi's adoption papers that day, they handed me his leash, and together, we walked back to the car. I kept looking at him in disbelief. I couldn't believe I had just adopted a dog. I opened the car door, and Yoshi jumped right in, as if he had done it a hundred times before.
On the ride home, I kept turning around and hugging him and looking at this smiling, happy boy. I cried the whole way home, feeling so lucky to have found him and knowing that I saved his life. He saved mine, too.
Yoshi helped me mend my broken heart and showed me what true companionship means. He made life less lonely.
On the mornings when I didn't want to get out of bed, he was my motivation. Our walks, even in the frigid Michigan winters, were the most enjoyable part of my day, a way to clear my head, get lost in the landscape. At certain moments, he would look up at me and just smile and light up my heart. We were inseparable. We still are.
Contact Carla Kucinski Seward at 373-7319 or carla@gotriad.com.
Carla and Yoshi.
