Thunder; the Original Great Great Dane

I had wanted a dog for all my adult life, but living situations always prevented it. It is a shame how hard it is to find an apartment that allows dogs, especially one that doesn't also require extra deposits or fees for said dog. Can you imagine if landlords tried to collect a toddler deposit? Anyways, I ended up moving into my grandparents old house with my sister and her then-boyfriend/now-husband, with my parents as landlords. My sister was first to take advantage of this sweet situation, and got a Welsh Corgi puppy, Mr. Belvidere. I had my sights set a bit larger. I knew my dad would have a fit about a Great Dane, so I went behind his back, got a reluctant go ahead from my mother and found Thunder at a Great Dane rescue. It was love at first sight:)

This was me and Thunder(Thunder and I to the grammar police) the first time I met him. He was 100% mine from the minute he got home. He followed me everywhere, did a happy dance when I got home from work, and always watched out for me. Unfortunately I only had him for 6 months- he died one night in his sleep with no prior indication that anything was wrong. I found out afterwards that he was older than I had originally thought. I was a mess.

Even if I had known at the beginning that Thunder would only be with me for such a short time I would've still adopted him. Having any pet just makes your life so much better; someone who likes you no matter what. Thunder showed me just how valuable a pet can be, and also convinced me of the benefits of adopting a dog that needs a good home rather than buy a puppy (although honestly I don't know that I would be up for the amount of work a puppy entails:).

I don't want to end this on a sad note as Thunder was such an awesome dog, so I'll end with a story. Thunder was accompanying me and the boyfriend on some errands one day. First we picked up some subs for dinner, than popped into the movie store. While looking for a non-crappy movie (virtually impossible these days) we commented that it was so great that we could leave our super-awesome good dog in the car with our dinner and not worry about it (I bet you can see where this is headed). When we got to the car our subs were, of course, long gone, all except for the pickles, which were laid out perfectly flat on the front seat. Hey, at least he knew what he liked. Not the world's most interesting or funny story, nut it still makes me happy to remember it