Peaches! Out of the flowers!

Peaches! Off the pool cover!

Peaches! Not on the counter!

Peaches!

Peaches is not what you would call an ordinary dog. She is mischievous, crazy, and any other word that describes a little 20-pound dog with a curly tail and endless energy. For better or worse, she always finds ways to amuse herself.

Let me tell you the story about my family and I came to live with this little demon who is loved beyond words.

We had no idea what she was like before she came into our lives. The name Peaches sounds like something sweet and fuzzy, right? To be fair, there is a lot about her that fits that description. She can be intelligent and obedient, especially when learning tricks and coming to you when her name is called. I recently worked with her to jump over a sawhorse. She makes it look so easy as she soars through the air. She loves her family, human and fellow canine. When it’s time to go to bed, she loves to cuddle. She just has a way of capturing your heart with her beautiful brown eyes and sweet smile.

Who could guess that such an adorable dog could keep us on our toes?

Here is the story of how we adopted her.

On my 9th birthday, I decided that instead of presents, I wanted to donate to Second Chance Animal Shelter in East Brookfield, Massachusetts. On April 24, 2017, my mom and I brought five big boxes of donations to the shelter. As we opened the door and took a look around, I could see volunteers walking, feeding, and playing with the animals. Some of them were kids, just like me! I was a big animal lover, so I asked my mom if I could sign up to volunteer.

She looked at me and thought about it for a second. “Yes, Mia,” she said, “you can sign up to volunteer.”

I was so excited. We came back the next day and the day after that, and then every single day that we could. Dad told us not to get too attached to any of the dogs since we had two already. But after about three months, we were both yearning to add another dog to our family.

We had never rescued a dog before, but since we were volunteering at a shelter, we decided why not do it now?.

The next weekend we went back, and the workers were preparing to go to an adoption event, loading dogs and cats in the van.

Mom and I looked around to see if any dogs had not been walked yet. There was a little black dog on the top shelf that needed to go on her daily walk. We took her out of her crate and to the big outdoor pen.

When I dropped her leash, she dashed around the entire pen like a bullet. When we brought her back inside, and one of the workers wanted to take Peaches to the adoption event, but we wanted to keep her with us.

We asked if they could leave Peaches behind to give us a day to convince my dad to let us adopt her. Since we were volunteers, they said yes.

Now there was only one thing stopping us—Dad!

He’s not a big animal person to start with and is happy with the two dogs that we had. It took hours to get him to agree to just going to meet her.

We tried to find a way to convince him. We pointed out that Laci, our 12-year-old Boxer, was getting older and could not play with Franki, our 3-year-old Boxer.

Franki needed a friend to keep her company all the time, and Laci had decided to retire from that job.

Peaches had all the right qualities to fit the position in our house.

Now, if this story didn’t have a happy ending, then you probably would not be reading this. Dad said we could adopt Peaches.

Having Peaches gives everything a little more flavor, and we can’t wait to see what life has planned ahead.

PS: My dad and I are Peaches’ favorite humans and, believe it or not, Peaches has become dad’s favorite dog.