Meeting Copper
Back in 2020, during the lock-down period of the pandemic, I lost my emotional support dog, Caine, due to health issues he was experiencing. It was a very sudden and painful loss for me and I soon found myself having issues maintaining my anxiety and mood again and the feeling of being alone was overwhelming. I was on a steady decline and felt like I had nothing to look forward to and nothing to motivate me. After a while of talking with my counselor and mom I decided to start looking into getting another support dog and the search for my new pal soon began.
I knew I wanted a puppy so that I'd be able to raise him and have him for a long time but at the time, animal shelters didn't have many options since everyone was adopting during the pandemic. Once me and my mom had visited every shelter we could and had no luck, we turned to the Internet. I remember it being a weekend and my mom had sent me a Craigslist link for a litter of hound-mix puppies that were being sold. They were the cutest little puppies and I had a gut feeling that this was the path I should follow. I contacted the owners and asked my older sister to ride with me to go meet the puppies and a couple days later we were off to meet them.
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| Going home! |
When we got to the meeting spot and met the owners, they only had two puppies left and the puppy I was initially interested in was no longer available. The owner picked one of them up and let me hold him and in that moment it felt like it was meant to be. I had found my new buddy and after brainstorming I decided to name him Copper after the hound dog from my favorite movie, The Fox and the Hound.
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| Showing his true colors.. |
Within days of having Copper though, he had gone completely crazy and was running around everywhere getting into anything he could find. He would bite my feet and ankles while I was walking (even drawing blood sometimes), have accidents everywhere, and was just being an absolute menace to our household. I felt like I was dealing with a new born baby and a misbehaving toddler at the same time. It was extremely exhausting and not at all emotionally supportive. This was not how I had imagined having a puppy would be but this was only the beginning and I was not at all prepared for the obstacles that were ahead.
This is such a cool story! Growing up, I only had one pet, but the cat we had made us all feel like home. Going through tough times, pets are a huge help for comfortability and relaxation especially when you are going through a tough period of time. When losing a pet, sometimes the best option is to do what you did to help forget about the past. It seems like Copper was a great solution to help you get over Caine and move on!
ReplyDeleteWhat a cute pup! and I love the name cooper, I am so sorry about losing your other dog it's always hard to lose a pet. This is a great story though it makes me miss my pup sully, he's a golden and he stays at home while im at school which makes me so sad.
ReplyDeleteCopper looks like a nice dog and when getting a new puppy it can be hard at the beginning because they are not trained. I know losing a dog is hard we had a small dog named hops and he passed away 3 years ago and he was with us for about 8 years. It was very hard for my mom and sister because he was part of the family. My mom wanted a new dog so she got a German Shepherd and she named it Emma. At first she loved to jump on people but we had to teach her that, that wasn't okay. Puppies are so cute but man they can be a handful.
ReplyDeleteRemember not all dogs respond to traditional training methods and all dogs are different!
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