My First Pet

I didn't really have a first pet, because the family dog was there before I was. My parents called her Duchess and was a AKC registered German Shepherd. She had puppies and we kept one, which was named Princess. When Princess had puppies, we kept a solid white one and named her Empress. Empress was really my dog because we grew up together. I remember one day eating an ice cream outside when I was little, and Empress stole my ice cream right out of the cone! Since I was so lonely and did not have many kids my age to play with, Empress became my playmate. We used to play tag and catch and hide-n-seek together. Sometimes I would even dress her up in real clothes and she just went along with it. When I became a teenager, she could sense my confused moods and most nights would crawl in my twin size bed to lay beside me for comfort. In fact, many times we were inseparable. When my parents would call me to do something, they'd go through the litany of names before getting to mine. The dogs names were even called before they got to mine! It was hard to leave Empress behind when I went away to college. I think it was my first year of college when we had to put her to sleep because she had uterine cancer. We had wonderful times together and great memories.