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Poe, my dog

Like almost every other dog enthusiastic kid, I'd been asking for a dog since years yet my mom kept repeatedly telling me it was too much responsibility!
However, we'd heard of a few dogs living outside our apartment in a wooden shelter box, right on the gate. They were fed well and they were friendly.

There were 4 dogs:

• A baby fawn-colored dog who was really young and small. He didn't move or react much, he was just a tiny baby after all. I don't recall what we named him.
• Another fawn-dog, probably 1-2 months older than the baby. He was going through his teething phase and wanted to bite literally everything! We named him Toast.
• An old black dog who was the mother of the 2 fawn dogs. She had rough skin, probably from mites. We named her Shady.
• And the dog who I eventually adopted, Poe. He was black, white and even brown in some places. He was unrelated to any of the dogs but lived together with them for reasons we didn't know. His original name was Poe, same as now.

Me and many other people from our apartment fed them and gave them water and love regularly.
They weren't interested in moving out of there; after all, they got everything they wanted didn't they?

Unfortunately, they were plagued with mites and diseases. Not surprising since they lived on the street.
As far as we could tell, the 2 fawn babies were healthy.
The mother dog had a severe case of mites and rough skin. Poe had a (less) severe case of mites, no energy, wasn't interested in eating much and only wanted milk and was just generally in bad condition.
Unknown to us at that time, he had canine distemper, a very dangerous and lethal disease.

My mom was starting to consider adopting one of the dogs. I knew there was probably little hope of that happening, but I clung on to it and I'm glad I did!
Our first choice was Toast but we weren't sure yet. The other baby was too young, Shady possibly too old to get used to our house (and she's a mother), and we weren't sure we'd be able to handle Poe's disease situation.

Some time later, something really tragic happened. Toast got hit by a car at night.
From what we heard he was taken to the hospital but he didn't make it in time.
However, the smallest baby dog got adopted by an electrician who worked at our apartment. That left Poe and Shady.

Shady didn't like Poe very much and Poe was scared of her!
When Poe would come too close to Shady for her comfort, she'd lift up her paw and give him a hard smack! If Poe had been her son she probably would've treated him a lot better.
After Toast's death, me and my mom could see that Poe wasn't exactly safe either. If he grew tired of Shady's antics, he would move away from her and from the apartment.
It was only the food we gave him that kept him there, and if he thought he would find another reliable place with a food source he'd gladly take to the roads and start exploring!

And then the moment came. My mom decided that we were gonna adopt Poe to keep him safe and healthy! I had been waiting for YEARS for this moment! I don't think I can put my excitement at that moment in words.
Even though Poe was quite heavily diseased then, we decided to get him vaccinated, cleaned up, medicined etc.
For reasons I can't remember, we couldn't get him vaccinated just yet and the doctor told us to wait 2 more weeks. One of my mom's friends who's a dog owner helped us take Poe to the hospital. Poe sat so comfortably in our car's backseat, in his lap, not even moving!
He just started out of the window in amazement like a baby.

Then we got him home and carried him in a blanket. That's when we learned he was really scared of new and strange places.
He'd never seen someone's house before, he wouldn't move around in ours!
We laid out a bedsheet for him in my room and put him there. He was so confused he didn't even move a muscle!
To make him feel more welcome, my mom boiled an egg for him and put it in a bowl for him to eat. Then he finally got the hint that we were friendly people! He was very hungry and ate quickly.

Still, the discomfort of a new place didn't go away. After eating, he went back to his little bedsheet in my room, whined a lot, and then fell asleep.
It had been a long day.

In the next few days he would get a bit more comfortable with the house and would be able to move around relatively freely.
He really liked the carpet and made it his bathroom 😵‍💫
Fortunately, he was really very good at potty training and learnt quickly to not poop anywhere.

Fast forward about a year and he's a very happy, naughty and good dog!
He loves us a lot (maybe too much for his own good) and he's the cutest fluffball I've seen (totally not a biased opinion)!
Who says stray dogs can't be cute, loving and smart?

Adopt, don't shop.
Signing off.

Hope you had a good read, comment your opinions down below!
Published on June 20th, 2022.
Last edited on June 20th, 2022.