The day we got him was not the day we intended to. We had just lost our old dog Oreo about a month ago, Mom was heartbroken. Our family didn’t feel complete, there’s was a huge chunk missing and we all knew it. We had been looking at new puppies for two weeks, mom wouldn’t budge. She loved her late dog too much to let go so soon. 

    My dad and I had been keeping our eyes on these two black lab puppies. We thought they were perfect. They had been labeled as “Male 1” and “Male 2,” and male 1 had been catching our eye the most. We tried begging mom, knowing that a pure bread black lab would not go unsold. Next thing we knew, male 1 had been sold and all that was left was male 2, the tiny one of the litter. Still adorable, as all puppies are, we wanted him so bad. After about ten minutes of my dad and I going back and forth between my mom, next thing we knew we were in the truck on our way to get our new puppy. 

    At this point, it was around seven o’clock, and the drive was about an hour. I sat there, so excited to meet the newest edition to the family, I was already thinking of names. We got to the place where he was, he was the cutest and smallest little thing in the whole world, I fell in love with him on site. All I wanted to do was hold him and never let go. He was six pounds. We brought him home and decided on the name Duke.  

    Our little puppy soon started to grow, eating almost everything in sight. Months went by and he became my best friend. Soon enough, our eight-week-old, six pound puppy, turned into my one-year-old, one-hundred-pound puppy.

big Duke