“Dad, can we please get a dog?” My sisters and I began with a desperate smile.
Staring down at us with a look of pity, his fatherly voice responds, “No.” He puts his hand on my shoulder and smiles at me gently.
“A dog? Do you realize the kind of trouble a dog is living in New York City? Who would walk it every day? What would we do with it while we were out of town? Don’t you think an apartment is no place for a dog? A dog would feel trapped in an apartment all day.”
“I would take care of the dog; you wouldn’t have to do a thing.”
My dad’s questions always made me take a minute to frantically search for an answer that would satisfy his concerns, but I was never able to convince him of a owning a dog while we lived in New York City. Like a dog living in a New York apartment, I felt trapped. My dad’s strong opposition to having a dog mad me upset, and his stubbornness incited a feeling of hopelessness in me. My hopes of getting a dog were destroyed because I lived in a New York apartment. The apartment halted my desires for a companion. The apartment prohibited me from getting a dog. The apartment gave my dad a, unfortunately, valid reason for not having a dog. What could I do? Absolutely nothing. I was trapped, reluctantly caged in to a life with no dog.
“Please, let my dad change his mind,” I begged each night before I went to bed.

Compromise
“Good morning, JB!” Exclaimed my dad enthusiastically. “Happy Birthday.”
Spending most of the day in front of the TV, playing Madden 04, with Michael Vick on the cover, my uncle and I were having an awesome day. That is when my dad stepped in front of the TV, instigating screams from both me and Uncle Dave about the nerve that my dad had to interrupt this important game.
“John, let’s go on a walk,” My dad said to me with a bright smile on his face. “Hailey and Grace can come along too.”
I wasn’t too happy that Hailey and Grace were joining in on this adventure, but I was mainly focused on what this “walk” was going to be about.
My dad took me down the street, past the grocery store we normally go to, past the movie theater that we usually see movies at, and past our favorite pizza place. Confused on why I was going on such a long walk, when I could be playing Madden with Uncle Dave, I asked my dad, “Where are we going?”
We approached a pet store. My dad looked at me and said, “Happy Birthday!”
My heart raced with joy, as I looked at all the dogs in the pet store; however, my dad gently put his hand on my shoulder and reiterated, “No dog.”
“What am I supposed to get?” I responded in confusion.
Scanning the room, my dad pointed out a little Guinea Pig that was up against his cage sniffing around, almost begging to be seen by his future owners.
“How about that thing?” My dad asked.
The Guinea Pig was primarily white and black, but he had a little peanut butter coloring on his left ear. I looked at him for awhile. Hailey and Grace did as well. All three of us exclaimed, “I love it. Let’s get it!”
We knew that our fights for a dog were wasteful, so having a Guinea Pig was a great compromise. I had more room to move around the cage now that I had a pet. We approached the cash register and bought the frightened little Guinea Pig, named Peanut Butter; he was instantly put in a small cage that we carried all the way home.


Peanut Butter

Peanut Butter had been living in my room for four years now. My family and I now lived in Texas. Moving away from the hustle of New York City into a nice house with a yard, my family finally was able to get a dog. In fact, my dad allowed us to get two dogs: Fenway and Tessie. With the move to San Antonio, my dad let up on his “No dog” rule, and so we quickly got two. However, Peanut Butter was still my first pet. He held a special place in my heart.
At 8:00 am, every day, Peanut Butter woke up and ran his daily laps around his cage. However, running around his cage was not a frequent occurrence; Peanut Butter spent most his day, hiding in the dark depths of his little wooden house, only revealing himself to the brightness of my room for a drink of water, or a hefty meal.
Peanut Butter became “fat, really fat,” as my sister Grace described him. I had to refill his food bowl at least three times a day because he would squeal obnoxiously until someone, usually me, stuffed his little cage full of alfalfa, or the occasional carrot, which was incredible to watch him eat because his mouth was no bigger than the tip of a pen.
When I first got Peanut Butter, he hated his cage. Whenever I tried to put him back in the cage, he would claw my shirt and tremble with fear. He squealed and ran around all day, begging me to let him out. Now, however, he had reluctantly accepted his trapping, his caged lifestyle that is inevitable for him. My sisters and I escaped our enclosure when we moved out of our New York apartment and to a beautiful home in San Antonio, but Peanut Butter’s escape was different—a pure exit from the world that he was caged to live in.
In eighth grade, my school took an overnight trip to Camp Champions. I had a blast, but when I returned home my family looked at me with sorrowful eyes. My mom gently approached me.
“Peanut Butter died while you were gone,” she cautiously informed me.
I was speechless. I stood there and started to cry. He slept in my room everyday and I had grown to become accustomed to his squeals and laps around the cage every day. He was my first pet.
As I lay on my bed, thinking about Peanut Butter, I realized that it was not too sad. I could tell that he was getting old, frustrated with his caged life. All he did was eat and sleep. But now, he was finally free from his enclosure. Free from the white bars that caged him in my room all day. Free to run his laps wherever he desired.
“Goodbye Peanut Butter.” I said. “Be free.”