By 7th Grade Nathan S.

This is the story of how we got our dog, Molly. All of us love Molly, and she is (mostly) good. But this isn’t the story of how Molly is now; this is the story of how she was when we got her.

The story starts at our old house. It was a medium sized blue house, with a profile that looks like a stereotypical house a kid might draw, a rectangle with a trapezoid on top. What I remember the best though was the backyard, which is where this story, or at least the beginning of it, takes place.

As soon as you walked out of the back door, you stepped onto a patio. The whole patio was made of big stone tiles, each about a foot square. The main attraction, however, was the firepit in the center, maybe five or six feet in diameter. 

Molly wasn’t our first dog. That title goes to a GSP (same breed as Molly, stands for German Shorthair Pointer) named Stan. Stan was a good dog, but all good things must come to an end, and then we were without a dog. So, we wanted a new dog.

Our parents and grandparents surprised me and Ian (my brother) with Molly. My dad and grandfather brought home the energetic puppy and our mom and grandmother brought us outside to see her. She was straining on her leash to see and sniff everything, our dad barely able to keep her in one place. Standing by the fire pit, I saw a new dog and was overcome with a sense of joy, magnified because I was only seven or eight, an age at which all emotions were multiplied. Ian and I rushed over to her in a blur of brown fur, wagging tail, and constant shouts of ‘Puppy!’ We were so excited about the prospect of a new dog that we probably never would’ve stopped doting on Molly if not for our parents wanting to let her explore the yard.

From there, we quickly realized that Molly was going to be a piece of work. She would bark constantly and beg for food, and she even stole a slice of pizza off of Ian’s plate in our new house.

Our new house is white, and has a much less stereotypical shape than the old one. When we moved, Molly was the first to settle in. She was begging for treats in the pantry as soon as we put them there and running around the backyard long before the rest of us even saw it. We have a decently sized family room, which is where a lot of this segment of the story takes place, as it’s where Molly’s dog bed is. 

Our backyard has another patio, one quite different from the first one. It’s made with similar stone blocks, but that’s about where the similarities end. It has three tiers, the first of which is where our dad’s little garden of planters and a little grilling space with a straight metal roof held up by four wooden beams to prevent the grill from getting rained on.

When we moved, Molly was super excited. She ran around the yard, digging up holes in the ground and barking at squirrels that may or may not have been there. When she wasn’t outside running around, she was inside, also barking at (possibly imaginary) squirrels. She rotated through those activities throughout most of the day, and at about 6-7pm she would just lay down and act pitiful. Unless someone had A) brought out food or B) said the word “treat”.

Over the course of many years, Molly evolved. She became less energetic (not unenergetic, just not as explosive), and started lying on her bed in the family room more often. It was mostly subtle, but then something important happened. She grew a goatee (dogee?). More accurately, the hairs on her chin started greying. This was when she entered the ‘old lady’ stage. She started barking at imaginary squirrels less (not all squirrels, but I guess her real-fake squirrel accuracy went up), lying on her bed a lot more of the time, got many more treats, and really just became a lot more manageable. We even sometimes call her a walrus without tusks, though that’s not really true. She also likes (pronounced: tolerates) me a lot more, and will even suffer through me petting her! This is about where we are now, so I think it’s time to wrap this up.

If you’re going to get a GSP, get one when it’s 8-11 years old. They’re a lot less energetic and excited about everything. I’d relate a GSP to an art project. Early on, it takes a lot of work to get the general idea right, but if you pull through anyway, the end product can be super rewarding. You could get a younger GSP, but only a madman would enter the danger zone of adopting a GSPuppy; those things are like condensed balls of energy. Screw renewable energy, Earth is fine as soon as scientists figure out how to harness the power of a GSPuppy.

Dogs can be a lot of work, but they’re super rewarding. They love you unconditionally (well, the only condition is a constant flow of treats), and can be super protective. If you get a dog as a puppy, they’re super energetic and sometimes annoying. But it just makes it all the more satisfying when they mature.