by Stacey Smith

Created on: January 05, 2009   Last Updated: December 14, 2011

Rosco's Choice

As someone who loves animals, it had been a long time since I had a dog in my daily life. I had two cats for years, but I hadn't had my own dog in close to a decade. A few months before my ex-boyfriend and I broke up, we got a six-year old Beagle name Bob. Bob was amazing! I loved him so much and having him in our lives made me remember how rewarding it is to have a dog and how different it is from having a cat. My cats were amazing, but a dog is always in your face, much more present and dependent than cats. It's been said that people who choose cats for pets are not as codependent as people who choose dogs. I guess I'm a little bit of both, but I really enjoy the constant attention and love of a dog.

When my boyfriend and I broke up, he kept Bob. It was only fair because Bob was his dog. But, that didn't stop my heart from aching and hurting from missing Bob. Six months later, I decided that the best way to heal my broken heart was to get a dog of my own. And, that's when Rosco found me.

I began my dog search online. I decided I wanted an older, smaller dog because I was single and lived in a condo without a backyard, so the care of the dog would fall solely on me and would be a huge responsibility. I also decided that I would find my dog at the local shelter. There were tons of amazing animals at no-kill shelters, but I wanted to save a life. Our local shelter doesn't have the space or the resources to keep animals alive indefinitely, so I narrowed my search to the one shelter.

The first day of my search, I found Rosco. He was listed as a four-year old, medium-sized Beagle mix. He had this goofy look on his face in his online picture that made it seem like he was smiling. I liked him immediately. But, I was going on vacation the first week in January and couldn't get a dog until I returned. I told myself that if Rosco was still there when I returned, I would adopt him.

Life happened when I returned from my vacation and I was really busy for a few weeks, so I didn't revisit my dog search until the end of January. When I went back online to look at the dogs at my local shelter again, Rosco was gone. Always the optimist, I assumed he had been adopted to a good, loving home and began to look at other dogs.

One Sunday afternoon at work, I found Max online on the shelters website. He was a medium-sized, five-year old mixed breed dog. He was very handsome and had the most amazing eyes. My co-workers told me to go and get him that day, so I did. The

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