Journey to Getting a Dog

When I was younger, I am often dreamed about having a dog and what it would be like. I’ve always wanted a pet before and was interested in owning one one day. I was mostly interested in getting a dog around the same time I lived in an older house here in Patterson, around elementary school times, where I would play with my neighbor who else had a dog named Kiki. It was a medium sized dog, roughly half my height, and it was pretty rambunctious. I knew having an energetic dog would be fun, as I was also energetic (at that particular time). I've had some funny moments with that dog, like one time he saw a cat while I was holding his leash and he was stronger than my little ole tiny body, so I ended up being dragged while also knocking into my neighbor. What was worse was there were these two girls in the car and their dad was getting their mail, which the mailbox happened to be in front of my house, so they saw the whole thing, which was super embarrassing. A few years later, we tried looking for a good dog that would be good for us, and eventually my dad was able to find a dog for us, which he was able to get via my uncle, since he had a litter of pups, and he gave one to my dad for free. His name was Rockee, which we named based after our other neighbors dog, Lucky, who was a fully-black Cardigan Welsh Corgi. He is a Pitbull/Labrador mix, so he was expected to get pretty big after a few months. He was also very playful, trying to climb up on basically anyone that would come play with him, but my mom usually couldn't let him climb on her otherwise she'd get shoved to the floor, and she had to be cautious because she has a bit of a bad back. Whenever we’d take him out for walks, he would always have this alert position while walking, and scout and sniff the sidewalks all around, always marking his territory on literally everything inanimate, like a mobile sprinkler. We occasionally take him out for walks, but usually avoid walking him out in the summer due to the hot weather. I enjoy having him as company, and he is one of the best things to happen in our life.