A Lot About My Dog

When I was eight years old, we adopted a dog named Rocky. He's a schnauzer-poodle mix, so he's about the size of a miniature schnauzer but he's white. We cut him like a schnauzer, so he basically looks like a white schnauzer, but if you let his fur grow out it gets super curly.

We got Rocky from a shelter near Chicago when he was four years old. Before he lived in the shelter, he was with a different family. They had to give him up because they couldn't afford to pay the treatment for his heartworm. He went through the treatment at the shelter, but stayed there for a while. No one wanted to adopt him. But then my family came into the picture. We had to visit the shelter to make sure we were a good fit for him, but we had nothing to fear. He loved us immediately -- he ran to and fro between us, jumping up and licking our faces. We left with him that same day, and the shelter owner apparently announced that Rocky was getting adopted on social media because it was a cause for celebration.

Rocky had a bit of a rough start in our house. He wasn't allowed to run because he was finishing his heartworm treatment and had to stay crated for a certain number of weeks. After those weeks were up, we faced the challenge of trying to get into the house without letting him sprint out the door. Like most new dogs, he wasn't used to being in a different place and tried to run away back to what he knew. And he was crazy fast. If you turned your attention away from the door for one second, he slipped out and was gone. One day, he got out and ran down our street onto Prospect --- right after a fresh snow. Another time, we were taking him up to Michigan to visit our grandparents, and he managed to slip away from us and run down the off ramp to the highway into oncoming traffic. He also used to be a very snappy dog, not letting us touch him a lot. But eventually he came to trust us, and it's been smooth sailing from there.

Rocky used to be a very energetic dog. He loved chasing tennis balls around the yard and chasing us around the house. As he's gotten older (he's thirteen now), he's stopped running as much, but he still likes long walks just as much as sleeping on the couch. Despite his inherent laziness, he's still excitable: he doesn't have a full tail, so when he wags his tail he ends up waggling his entire butt around, and when he's really excited, he'll start sneezing a lot. He's a little more neurotic -- he doesn't like beeps and comes to hide in my room when something in the kitchen emits a high-pitched noise -- and he's picky about how he is touched and who touches him. My parents, my brother, and I are the only people he will allow to pick him up or touch him everywhere.

But he still loves his people just as much as ever. When we first got him, he slept in his crate. A couple years ago, he slept in my parents' closet. Now, he sleeps in their bed. He hates whenever we go on trips -- when he sees the suitcases come out, he gets upset. Recently, he's taken to getting in the car and refusing to get out when we're packing it up. We have to pick him up and put him back inside, leaving him staring at us in the most distress he's ever been in in his dog life. In the morning, he lies outside my door waiting for me to get up. Sometimes he'll howl in the morning if everyone else is gone and I'm still in bed. I think he gets lonely.

It's hard to imagine my life without Rocky. He's obviously part of our family now, but he's also wedged himself into our lives seamlessly. He likes to sit on the stairs, but in the very middle of the step and spreading himself over the entire step so we have to skip the stair when we go upstairs. When it's close to bedtime, he'll start licking us -- we think he's bathing us. He's started whining when we don't put our dinner plates away immediately because he wants to lick them. If we're all lying on the couches in the family room, he'll shove himself between us or occasionally, on top of us. If we're lucky, he'll sit directly on our faces. I assume it's his way of showing affection. He gets in the way, but none of us really mind.

I hope he doesn't mind when I go to college. When I was out of town for a couple weeks, my dad texted me and told me that Rocky had been sitting outside of my bedroom door every morning. While he can be a pretty stupid dog, I don't think he was waiting for me to get up. I think he just missed me. So when I go off to college, I hope he doesn't get too sad that I'm gone. Who knows? Maybe he'll just refuse to get out of the car when we leave.