Room 132

My Dog Cozmo

“Come on Cozmo, go get it.” I hucked his new green tennis ball far away, Cozmo running after it. Bringing it back to me I throw it again. Repeatedly, my hyper black lab brought the ball back as if I hadn’t even thrown it yet. As I hucked it, this time it went farther than ever. I see Cozmo running after it, like a blot of lightning. The way he gracefully runs for the ball, his black hair shining from the reflection of the sun. Looking at the ball hovering in the sky I wonder how life would be like if I never got Cozmo. All the work I had to do to get him, all the time I spent on research.
Every year on my Christmas List the first thing on it says, 1. A Dog. I don’t know why I love dogs so much, it’s probably just how they each have their own personalities and are all different from one another. I never really confronted my parents about actually getting/adopting a dog but on that day, around 3 years ago, I got the courage to do so. It was a Saturday, the sun was out and my parents were sitting at our dining room table, reading the newspaper.
“Dad,” I said hesitantly, “I was wondering if we could get a dog?” By knowing my dad, he would of said no immediately, but I still wanted to make sure, just in case.
“I don’t know, a dog is a huge responsibility.” Harvey was still reading the newspaper, and had made no eye contact. Another thing my dad is good at is ignoring you. To make sure he’s giving you his absolute attention, you have to get eye contact with him. And I could see that he still wasn’t even looking at me. It made me feel that my feelings and opinions were less important than who won the last baseball game.
“Gosh, why don’t you ever listen to me!”
“Okay, I’ll give it some thought. If you do these three things I might consider letting you get a dog. I want you to learn about dogs in general, you have to also research a specific breed that you want, and you have to learn the essential needs and how to care for it.” It was the middle of fifth grade, 2002, and our whole class had to go to the library because it was Wednesday. Our library wasn’t the nicest thing in the world. If you’d try to whisper, it was easy to be overheard by others because the bookshelves were so short. That day I was reading a book on dogs at one of the blue, long reading tables and my good friend Alice came over. Alice was a great friend, and was an expert at dogs. Just by looking at any dog, she could name what breed they were. Even if it was a mutt, a mix of a lot of different breeds, she could tell what they were.
I started talking to her about my situation. She seemed glad to help, so for the next 3 weeks she helped me learn everything possible on Labrador retrievers. One of the first grade teachers was in a wheel chair and she had a guide dog named Brianna. And this was perfect because Brianna was a black lab. And almost every lunch, we would go into Ms. Adams room and eat lunch with Brianna. I was so relieved that she could help me, because seriously, I needed all the information I could find.
It was around 3 weeks later, and once again it was Saturday, both of my parents at the dining room table. I showed him about 20 papers on facts about dogs, the care they need, and everything else I could dig up. He was very impressed with my research, and I was like yes this is it, this could be it! But I guess my research wasn’t enough. So he said if I puppy proof and clean the house, we’ll definitely go to the shelter and look for a dog. Which is exactly what I did. I had to vacuum every room in our house, I wrapped all the loose cable with twisty ties, I scrubbed the kitchen cabinets, I did almost everything possible you could do to clean a house. When I came back and told him everything, and showed him the clean couches, and the sparkly windows, he was amazed. He then repeated this annoying habit. If you do this, this, and this we’ll go get a dog. I was so determined to get a dog I would do exactly what he said. Then same old, same old, he would give me one more thing to add to my to-do list. My list just kept on getting longer and longer. He kept on promising me a dog, but did we ever get it “tomorrow” or “next weekend”? no, he didn’t keep his promises.
It was around August when my mother finally got the hint about what was going on. My dad had given me so many things to do, I was doing something every minute of every day. It was a cool morning, it had rained earlier, so the dew on the grass was glistening. My father was at my grandparent’s house in Woodinville and I was home with my brother and my mom.
“Come on you guys, get in the car.” My brother and I didn’t know exactly where we were going because our mom wouldn’t tell us. So we just sat in the car, patiently watching Anger Management on the DVD screen in our car.
30 minutes later we finally drove up a driveway that connected to a medium sized house around an acre of grass. The house belonged the Mary H. Hallowell. She was a breeder, and she had one black lab puppy left from her recent litter. Now I finally figured out what was going on. My mom had taken my brother and I to go get a dog.

Previously, my dad, my mother and I had visited shelters, probably around 20 of them. But every time I found a dog we could save, like this one German shepherd dog, he said, “No, I don’t like this one, it barked at me!” But clearly all the dogs were barking at everyone because they wanted to see all the people outside their gloomy, dull cages.
As we waited in the meeting room Mary had left to get the mother of the puppy, a chocolate lab. I looked around the room; there were hundreds of pictures of labs next to hunters, or labs pointing. There were certificates framed on the walls which all had to do with hunting. Clearly these were also bred for hunting dogs.
As she brought out the mom, she seemed so hyper; her tail was wagging so fast, it looked like a blur. Mary was telling us that the funny thing was, the puppy’s mom was a chocolate lab, his dad was a yellow lab, but he turned out to be a black lab. I felt very bad because we couldn’t take her home to, and it was like we were taking her baby. Mary had went back and put the mom back in her kennel/run and then came back with what looked like to be a ball of fluff. That was him, he was the cutest puppy I have ever seen. He was black and a little bit smaller than a loaf of bread. He came walking into the room as if he owned it himself, he ran around smelling us and the room itself. He probably might have not been in this room before because he was the last puppy of the litter, but I wasn’t sure if he was the runt. He had a sort of “strut”, like a funny way of walking that made him more adorable then ever!
As my mom signed the papers while my brother and I took him outside into the field to play. The grass was nice and green, but the only problem was, was that there were all of these dandelions everywhere and the puppy kept on trying to eat them. So we had to improvise and stick our hands in his mouth to get the entire flower out. As we got into the car, Mary placed the new puppy on my lap, before I new it he was fast asleep. His head was resting on my hand and his tail fell smoothly off my leg and onto the car seat. I felt like saying hey, he’s mine; this cute adorable puppy is mine. Do you know how much work I had to do to get him? I am responsible for him now; he’ll be there for me for a very long time. I felt like shouting that to the world.
The roads weren’t to icy but earlier in the morning it had been slippery, so as we were driving on the free way the car in front of us had lost the spare tire that it usually kept on the back of the truck. The tire came flying off and my mom had to dodge the wheel. Luckily it didn’t hit us, but it woke the puppy up.
Since then he never really did like cars much. Whenever we tried to take him to the dog park it takes him a while to get into the car. He takes his time and hesitantly goes into the car. It might also be because he gets car sick, but my family and I aren’t positively sure.
Cozmo came running back, ball in mouth. Back from a daydream, Cozmo back from chasing the ball I go up to him and give him a big hug. I don’t think life wouldn’t have been as much fun as today has. I wouldn’t have such a rollercoaster life if it weren’t for you, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Just me and him, throwing the ball back and forth, all day.