Adopting Cinder

Back in January of 2020, I had recently moved from Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Boulder, Colorado. I loved college, but within six months, I was already feeling antsy. I decided to sign up for a program called BuffsTeachAbroad, where I would spend the summer working for a reunification program in Tanzania, Africa. I spent months fundraising, strutting up and down my campus trying to sell students overpriced doughnuts, organizing 'the mac wagon' in which we spent Friday nights selling mac and cheese to drunk college students, and finding alumni to beg for donations.

You can imagine, I’m 18 years old, over the moon to embark on my African adventure. Then a global pandemic hits, and everything comes to a screeching halt. Lockdown was brutal; we enforced 'family meetings' where we would gather once a week to air out all of our grievances with each other. Cabin fever turned into me running away to the only summer camp I could find open, allowing me to escape into a Covid-free bubble for a time. Just like that, I was back in Boulder, trapped in a tiny apartment with roommates that were constantly at each other's throats. Sleeping until 4 pm, skipping far too many classes, and finding little motivation to leave my apartment. After a month of this, I began working for Rover, a dog-watching service. Every dog that came to stay with me, I became overly attached to, hoping their owners might forget to pick them up. I had worked at a dog kennel in high school and had forgotten how much joy I got from simply sitting on the ground snuggling puppies. Franklin, a tiny white Maltese, came to stay with me the same week I decided to start researching dog breeds.

I’m sure you can guess where this is going. It started as fantasizing about dog breeds for when I was older and more stable. I would sit in my Zoom lectures and research the healthiest dog breeds, the different price points, their intelligence, and how much exercise they needed. Working at the dog kennel, I met endless mutts I had fallen in love with, but my shoebox apartment wouldn’t allow for a dog bigger than twenty pounds. I finally caved and called my sister:

“Dogs are too expensive, you can’t afford that in college.”

“But all that money I fundraised is burning a hole in my pocket.”

“You want to travel, you can’t do that with a dog,” she texted me later that day.

But I sent her a picture of a tiny Pomeranian sitting in my lap from my dog kennel days. “You’re telling me he couldn’t hop on a plane with me?”

“What about your apartment, they won’t allow dogs?” My dad was now involved.

“Google emotional support dog,” I answered. I couldn’t seem to find a reason not to do it. Nothing that stuck, anyways. And I had always thrived on structure. A reason to get out of bed. A dog that needed to be fed, walked, and socialized.

Just after my 19th birthday, I reached out to a breeder asking to be put on the waiting list for the spring. That gave me six months to talk myself out of it. Six months for life to get back to normal and become too busy for a dog. Six months for my parents to convince me that having a dog in college was a horrible idea. The next day, the breeder sent me a picture of Cinder, saying she had one puppy left, and I signed the contract.

Here’s to impulsive, life-changing decisions that make our lives that much brighter. I thank my 19-year-old self every day for ignoring all the naysayers and leaning into a life filled with endless Cinder snuggles.

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