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Pets

5 Things I Do Because I Love My Dog

Sometimes it’s tough being a pet parent.

Bev Potter

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Photo by Judi Neumeyer on Unsplash

I’m not gonna lie — it took me almost a year to bond with Hershey, my current canine appendage.

My heart dog, a Boxer-mix named Peanut, had died, and I started combing the rescue pages for my next BFF. In short order, Hershey the puggle (Really? Are we sure?) was dropped off at my office with nothing but a collar and a dream.

There were a few warning signs (such as handing her over to me with no questions asked), but since I’d never owned a rescue before, I had no idea that I was the perfect owner for a two or three-year-old dog with a lot of “issues”, shall we say.

The first time I grabbed her paw to trim her nails, she growled at me. I’d never been growled at by a dog before.

My ex-husband was a K-9 officer with the Sheriff’s department, so for many years I was surrounded by perfectly trained German Shepherds. Even better, Peanut the Wonder Dog picked up their German commands on her own by osmosis.

Poor Hershey. Lots of personality, not so much brains.

On top of that, she came from some ill-defined “bad situation” that was never fully explained to me. I envisioned her in a crack house surviving…

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