During the Spring of 2021, my family made the decision to destroy our house. Okay, not really, but we did adopt a puppy which is pretty much the equivalent. We already had a dog at the time, Coco, and we got her when she was 2 years old and already mostly housetrained. So we didn’t have any experience raising a puppy, and naively thought it wouldn’t be much harder than our experience with Coco. I take credit for the idea of getting a puppy, but when we met Maverick for the first time, we all fell in love with him. And yes, the name Maverick is very fitting.
My dad likes to say that when we got Maverick, we made every mistake that we could have made, and it definitely feels that way sometimes. I think that one of the hardest parts of raising a puppy is feeling like you’re constantly playing a game of whack-a-mole. Every time we fix one problem another one is sure to crop up, and it can be pretty overwhelming to train a puppy out of their countless bad habits. Maverick’s problems range from getting too mouthy (and by that I mean nipping/biting), to having anxiety and barking around new people, to ripping everything up in sight. I should mention here that both of our dogs are rescues, and both struggle with anxiety. Maverick has already been abandoned by multiple people in his short life, so he definitely has separation anxiety and I don’t think he fully trusts that we won’t leave him yet.
But back to the difficulties of raising a puppy. Although there was no antagonism between Coco and Maverick when they first met away from our house, once we brought him home there were a couple of pretty major fights between them. For a while we had to be very cautious about feeding them anything in the same room, and always be on alert to go and break up a fight in the event that one occurred. Thankfully, this is one issue that has been completely resolved and Coco has accepted Maverick has her little “baby butter” (another nickname he lives up to). There are countless other problems I could talk about here, but I’m sure that you get the idea, Maverick had been a handful ever since we brought him home.
However, it goes without saying that raising a puppy can be immensely rewarding as well. We get to watch him have first experiences and see how much he has already grown up in the short time we’ve had him. My favorite part of this process has been getting to know all of the things that make him unique, like how he squeaks when he yawns really big or how much he loves listening to music when he gets anxious. As he’s gotten more comfortable in our home his personality has become more rambunctious, like when he got startled by the mail and started ripping letters out of the slot before the mailman put them all the way through, or how he likes to howl along to emergency sirens. We also see him through new experiences, like his first time going in a small pool or his first time at the beach, and how he learns from Coco how to handle these new, scary experiences.
Maverick has felt like part of the family from day one, even through any challenges. To be honest, I think he may have had more of a positive impact on us than us on him. He has been a source of stress relief for us with his silly antics, and has brought us so much joy. His presence has changed our family for the better, by forcing us to work as a team to take care of him, all while trying (and failing) to make sure he doesn’t tear up the house in the process.
This is a great essay! The introduction really got my attention and I liked the conversational tone throughout the rest of the essay. I also enjoyed the pictures at the end. Good job!
ReplyDeleteThat was an amazing hook! This is a really sweet essay, and it tells the story of Maverick's growth and impact really well.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job with conversational tone in this essay and I absolutely love the pictures at the end! You did a great job sharing the struggles of raising a puppy and contrasting that with how raising him helped your family as well. I think you could add some general statements near the end or throughout your essay to draw in your audience.
ReplyDeleteThe first sentence of the essay is *chef's kiss*, and the rest of the essay keeps the momentum of the first paragraph very well. I likes how you looked at the difficulties of raising Maverick but ended with the positives of it. The pictures are the end are also nice, since we finally get to see the troublemaker. I would suggest adding at least one more difficulty or moving one from the first paragraph to the second, since you only talk about Coco and Maverick. Overall, good job.
ReplyDeleteHi Farah, this is a great essay! I like how you describe all of the problems you faced raising Maverick, and I think the whack-a-mole analogy you used in the second paragraph does a good job of showing just how much work and attention raising a puppy requires. One thing I would change is talking more in the second and third paragraphs about how your family dealt with every problem that was thrown at you. I think it would help drive home your point in the end about how getting Maverick brought your family closer because you had to work together to take care of him. But overall, awesome job!
ReplyDeleteI really liked the conversational tone of your essay. Your introduction and your hook especially was really good with drawing me in and making me pay attention. I also liked the way you connected your intro and conclusion paragraph with the little "destroy the house" segment. I think I personally would maybe add a sentence in your introduction paragraph that adds a little more foreshadowing of what's to come later in the essay.
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