Love Them Anyway: A Story of Equality

See, Ann had wanted a dog for a while, and she had seen so many pictures of white lab puppies and thought they were so cute. She also had dreams of having a litter of puppies one day, so she went to the local shelter in search of a white female lab puppy. At the shelter, she did not find exactly what she was looking for – but she looked in the corner of the one pen and saw my big, loving eyes staring at her. Even though I was a male black lab, at that moment she didn’t care – she loved me anyway.

As she was signing the adoption papers, the volunteer told her that they had rescued me a few weeks ago from someone in Mexico. I traveled to the United States in order to be adopted. They asked if she wanted to change her mind about adopting me, and Ann continued signing the papers, saying that she loved me anyway.

As I grew older, I didn’t go to the bathroom like other male dogs.  I don’t like lifting my leg and peeing on things, I prefer to “go like a girl.” For a while, Ann wondered if I would learn to do it the “normal” way.  When I didn’t, she loved me anyway.

One day, Ann took me to the park and we saw a small dog (especially compared to me!) there. Ann said it was a dachshund but that people call them wiener dogs because of the way they look.  I don’t think that is very nice, and I’m going to call my new small friend Liv a dachshund and love her anyway. And when I’m in the park with Liv and she sees me go to the bathroom, she loves me anyway too.

I loved that park so much that Ann took me back there a few weeks later.  We saw someone and his dog there with a tennis ball launcher that shot 100 balls at once. Boy, that poor dog didn’t know which way to go, I felt so bad for him.  I prefer the tennis ball launcher that Ann bought for me. It holds 5 tennis balls and she only shoots them one at a time. And I get to have a little break while she reloads, it is perfect for me. But, that other dog’s dad has a right to have whatever kind of tennis ball launcher he wants to buy. So, I love him anyway too.

Even though Ann had warned me not to go near the road, because she didn’t want to build a wall around our yard, I got a bit too curious one day and a truck that was driving by hit my leg. Ann took me to the doctor. It’s too bad she didn’t have insurance for me because man, those were bills expensive! I had to have surgery on my leg and would be in a cast for a while. This made it much harder for Ann to care for me and she always had to answer questions about what happened. But, she treated me the same way and loved me anyway.

Because of my accident, the stairs that went into our house caused it to be really hard for Ann to get me outside to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately, she didn’t have enough money to build a ramp or do anything to make the stairs easier for me. She asked the government to see if they could provide us with any assistance. Even though she works full-time, she needed a little help paying for my medical bills and the ramp I needed to get outside. Everyone needs a little help at some point in their life, and we should love them anyway.