My name is Boone, I’m a Newfoundland dog, my owner’s name is Andrew, he’s about Thirty-Four years old and his job is being a major league baseball player. I’m currently Four and a half, and I stay home alone a lot.

The first day I ever met Andrew was when he adopted me from a farm I lived in somewhere in North Carolina, he seemed really nice and I kinda liked him, so I let him take me home. The drive back to my new home all the way in Arizona was pretty boring, He put me in a brown crate and put me in the front seat next to him in his car. I couldn’t see anything so I just tried to sleep for the entire time.

When we got to Andrew’s house, which was now mine too, I saw he was very wealthy from playing that baseball game for so many years. His house was enormous and I realized how much I would be able to run freely around his home.

Andrew let me out of my crate after we got out of his car and put me on a leash. He led me inside and showed me a specific room where he put all my belongings, which was a crate and a leash. I guessed that’s where I would be sleeping and stuff.

He told me it was night time and he had to go to work tomorrow so he put me in my little crate and turned the lights off. That was my first day of living in Andrew’s home.

Now currently, I’m four and a half years old and I weigh about a hundred and thirty-nine pounds, I’m a fatty alright. But there’s bigger dogs. Andrew just left to go to one of his baseball games but he wouldn’t let me come with him, no matter how much I pawed at him and tried to jump in his car. So I just went inside and took a nap while he was at work. Don’t tell Andrew, but I call his job “work” instead of a career playing baseball.

He comes home at around seven o’ clock and puts his jacket with his team logo on the couch, then tells me he’s going straight to bed because he’s had a long day and his team lost six to five after four innings of overtime. So I just go back to lying down, dreaming about being human, being able to do all the cool things that Andrew can do. He can use real words, not barks and woofs. And he has cool things like fashionable hair and opposable thumbs, man I wish I had those thumbs. He can hold things and maneuver things with his hands and thumbs, all I can do is bump into things with sticks in my mouth. I think humans like him have it easy. I’m very jealous of them.

But there’s still one thing I’ve got stuck in my mind about Andrew. He’s in his mid thirties and he doesn’t have a wife or kids, it’s just him and me. But I know I can’t give him the happiness and the friendship that a wife and kids can give him. He seems like he doesn’t even NEED a wife or a family, Andrew just seems happy. I never understood why he wouldn’t want a family to complete his life. He’s got everything else, money, a great paying job, me, he’s a nice guy, it looks to me as if his life has already been completed even without a family and actual people that he can live with.

The next time we go out into the city to go shopping for some new kitchen appliances I still can’t get that thought out of my head. Andrew seems to know that I am sad, “what’s wrong buddy?” He asks, I just put my head down and keep walking with him. When we get back outside I see a family walking down the street. I whimper and point my paw in their direction. Andrew sees the happy family, “you want me to have a family Boone?” I bark, I think he was wondering why I was worried why he didn’t have a family at his age. He just laughs. “Boone, I don’t need a family to be happy with myself! Families aren’t needed for everyone! I like being by myself, living with you. I’m fine buddy!

It was then that I realized that you don’t need everything necessary in life to be happy. Andrew had money and a big house and stuff, but if he had less money and a smaller house he’d still be happy with himself. I just think that’s an awesome way of living, he’s happy with himself, even though he SHOULD look into getting a wife because my life expectancy isn’t very long...