Bo always greeted me at the door when I would come home.  He always had his “baby,” normally called toys, in his mouth to show me all the time.  Bo loved to chase me and my dad around on our gator through the field and through the yard.  When I would take Bo out to do my barn chores with me, he would get super excited when I would yell, “Bo,” as I encouraged him by smacking my legs, “let’s go feed the chickens!” He sprinted right out to the chicken coop, always.  Taking Bo out to do chores with me made me happy.

I was five years old when we found the puppy I knew would become my best friend.  His name is Bo, and he was still just a puppy, I think eleven months old.  My dad always sternly told us, “We don’t need a dog in the house,” or another dog at all, but my mom didn’t care; so we adopted him anyways. He is almost exactly perfect.

My mom and I always volunteered at the animal shelter to just help out because we had friends who worked out there.  Even though the shelter smelled kind of foul from all the animals, I would feed the animals, take the dogs for walks, and play with all the cats. One day they brought Bo in the animal shelter.  He stayed in a light grey kennel, and Bo is a Golden Retriever. His coat shined like the color gold so much that it resembled the color of the sun.  The people who had him before just abandon him because they said he had a chewing problem.  Of course, he’s going to chew toys and shoes up. He was a puppy.  My mom grew very fond of him, just like every other animal she looks at.  My mom and I would go in the kennel with Bo and play with him and give him hugs. We ended up taking him home just for a day or so to see how it would work out.  My dad wasn’t excited at all, and I felt my stomach become full of butterflies as he clarified, “We aren’t keeping this dog,” but we did anyway. 
We did quite a bit with Bo the day we brought him home.  We bought him toys of all colors, played with him, and showed him around.  Our friend Jason buzzed over when we brought Bo home. He worked at the animal shelter, and he adored Bo, too.  Bo was really rambunctious like every other puppy acts. However, his breed is even bigger than a normal puppy, so it was worse. “We want him to know we are the boss of him; he’s not the boss of us,” Jason sternly informed us. The one memory I remember extremely well for some reason is when Bo ran into the front door when we walked in when we brought him home, but he shouldn’t do that because then he will think he’s the boss.  Jason led him back out on a leash and went to walk him through the door again, but Bo charged right through again and trampled over top of everybody.  Jason yanked Bo back and yelled, “No!” sternly. Bo went right behind Jason like a scared child and let us all go in the house first before him.  That’s the first time Bo was yelled at at our house, and he always let us go first in the door from that day on.

We also took Bo next door for our neighbors to meet him the day we brought him home.  We took Bo in their house, and everybody thought he was the cutest puppy, except for Isela.  Junior pet Bo and shrieked, “He is so cute.”  Isela has always been afraid of Bo and thought he acted mean.  She didn’t get excited or pet him when we brought him over; she just eyeballed him.  Her dog didn’t like Bo at all.

The day we adopted Bo was one of the best days that I will always remember.  It was a sunny, warm day out and that day definitely was a reflection of how all the rest of our days with Bo were.  He remained crazy and excited like the eleven-month-old puppy we adopted, up until the day we had to put him down. 

After years with Bo, he grew sick, and we knew he needed to be put out of his misery.  I cried so hard and for so long.  I held onto him until the vet came with the injection to put him down.  It felt like someone ripped my heart out of my chest.  Even after the surgery trying to save Bo, he stayed just as happy to see us, as he was any other day. I loved that dog; I loved him more than anything.