No one wanted to go except for my mom. So that’s why we went. It was a windy day in early September, a week before school started, the most depressing week of the year. That’s the time when you say goodbye to sleeping in, goodbye to doing whatever you want all day, and goodbye to no homework. All of my family members were cranky and upset, including me.

We all woke up one Saturday morning in terrible moods. I layed in my bed until ten o’clock in the morning, my parents were walking around the house with their shoulders slumped, and my brother just wanted to play with his toys. Then, out of nowhere my mom yells, “C’mon guess, we’re going to the farmer’s market to get fruits and vegetables.”

“Ugh,” my brother and I said in unison. “Why do we have to go?” I was so tired and upset that school was starting soon, so I wanted to just stay home and sleep. But my mom is the head of the household, so of course we all had to go because she wanted to. “Why can’t we just stay home?” my brother asks.

“Because I said so,” my mom said. We reluctantly got in the car and drove over to the market. When we got out of the car we shuffled our feet and made it obvious that we didn’t want to be there. “Let’s go,” my mom says in a forceful tone. “You’re embarrassing me.” My brother and I didn’t change our demeanor at all, just make sure our mom knew just how much we hated being there.

As we were walking to the barn to get fruits, I picked my head up for a brief second, and I noticed that there was a Saint Hubert’s stand, and in it was a small dog. He looked like our old dog, he had the same super-cute-and-sort-of-scraggly look to him. My mind suddenly flashed back eight years earlier to when my other dog, Shadow, died. My parents had rescued him when they were in college, and he was on the verge of death. He had been living on the streets, and he was so food deprived that you could count each individual rib on his frail body. They took him home and cared for him for years on end, never letting him down. He was a really loving and loyal pet, and there was nothing that could replace him. After his death, our family broke down in a way. We were all super upset that he died, and we thought we would never recover. But as time went on, my family started to move on, except for my mom. She was devastated, and she said we would never get another dog, and even if we did it would be in a really, really long time. Even after hearing that, I was still determined to convince her to get another dog. I used to ask her all the time, beg to her all the time, and then eventually give up. But today was different. This was the perfect opportunity, and I wasn’t going to let it slip.

I whipped my head around and before I could even say anything, she said “No, we are not getting the dog.” I started asking her why and she just kept saying no, over and over and over again. I eventually stopped trying, but in the back of my head I made a mental note to ask her again when we were walking out. Then we went to another part of the farmer’s market to get vegetables, far enough away so that we couldn’t see the St. Hubert’s stand anymore.

We got all of our food, and then started to leave. Then I asked, “Mom can we please go look at that dog?”
My mom stopped walking and paused for a second before responding. Finally, she answers, “Fine, but we’re not getting him.” I was really surprised that she agreed to go look, and even though she said we weren’t getting him, I was going to try to convince my mom to get him. When we got over there my mom started talking to my dad about something, out of earshot of my little brother and me. She got closer to us and we heard them talking about the dog. Our moods instantly skyrocketed. We leaned in closer, and we were just able to hear my mom say, “He keeps giving me the Shadow look.” My mom loved Shadow so much, and we knew that this might be when we get another dog. We were so excited that she was actually considering getting a dog, that we started jumping around and yelling like crazy. Our joy was very obvious, and my parents must have noticed, because they turned their backs to us and walked farther away, so that we couldn’t hear them anymore. She eventually turns around and says, “Alright, let’s go take a closer look.” I could tell that she was trying really hard not show what she was thinking about, even though I didn’t know what it was that she was thinking about. When we walked over to the St. Hubert’s stand, my parents started talking to the people at the stand. It was around three o’clock at this point, and the dog that is at that stand has usually been adopted by that point. But no one seemed to want this one. The people at the stand had been talking to my parents for more than ten minutes at this point, and me and my brother had given up and thought that we weren’t getting a dog.

Out of nowhere, we just hear, “Please sign here.” We instantly tuned in and started listening. We were getting the dog! My parents must have tried to be quiet about it so we didn’t get really excited and so it would be a surprise. After we started freaking out, my parents gave up the act and continued to talk normally, not in a hushed tone. I was so happy that we were finally getting another dog. Even my dad was visibly happy, as he had also been wanting another dog for a long time. My mom was so caught up with getting the dog, that she completely forgot about the cat we had at the time, and if she would’ve remembered that we had the cat, we might not have gotten the dog. Then when we were done with the forms, the people at the stand asked us “Do you know what you’re going to name him?” The name they had for him already was Dante, and we liked it so we kept that as his name.

Dante had been taken all the way from Georgia up to here, so he was really tired. He was basically sleeping when we got him, and we got a toy for him called Mr. Bill. It was his favorite toy, and he ended up ripping the toy apart because he played with him so much. In the car ride home Dante was lying on my dad’s shoulder. When we got home we let him in our yard and he was so happy. We took a bunch of pictures of him and showed our whole family. When we got him he was as big as a size 11 shoe. Three years later, he is now a lot bigger, and his head is as high as my knees when he is on all fours. He is very attached to my family, so much so that when we leave him by himself in our house for more than the time we are gone during school and work, he will get mad at us and rip things up. He is a very good dog, and to this day we do not regret getting him for a second, because he brings joy into our lives everyday we see him.