been ever since I was little whenever my
mom sent me outside to play you’d never
see me riding a bike or throwing around
a ball you’d see me going down my street
house-to-house and sitting on my
neighbor’s driveway and just petting
their dogs for hours I also have a dog
of my own her name is Sophie and getting
her was the greatest day of my entire
life she’s had a huge effect on my life
and my whole family’s life whenever I
need to de-stress
or just get away from homework or just
need a moment to myself I put on her
leash and we go for a walk and getting
fresh air is all I need to help me get
through my day so today I want to tell
you a story about how I learned how much
my dog cares about me which made me care
about her so much more and why I think
it’s important to adopt dogs from
shelters so one day a few weeks after we
got my dog she was still just a little
puppy
it was raining outside and we knew that
she was such a rambunctious puppy that
she still needed to get her exercise so
my brother and I got out a little
remote-control car and we drove her car
we drove the car around our house and
she would chase it and would freak out
and she was so scared of it and she
thought it was something dangerous and
she was barking at it constantly
and then when it was time to clean up
and put the toy away I went over to pick
it up and she ran in between me in the
car and she was pulling on my pant legs
with her teeth trying to get me to go
away and then she decided to go over to
her leash and she picked up her leash
with her mouth and she brought it over
the car and she tried to put the leash
onto the car I believe she knew that the
leash stops her from going where she
wants to go so she figured she could do
the same with the toy car and this
moment made me realize how much she
cares about me and I’m sure that if you
have a dog you’ve had a moment like that
with your dog as well and my dog isn’t
the only dog that’s helped me to stress
at school we have dogs come in during
finals week that and they we pet them
between breaks and we they really help
us de-stress and it’s really great
because it helps me stay calm for my
next test so seeing how much these dogs
helped us it makes me really sad to see
how some of them are treated about 3.9
million dogs end up in shelters every
year in the US alone and my dog Sophie
was one of those dogs and these dogs
sometimes end up in shelters because
they’ve been at
used and abandoned and it’s really awful
what they have to go through so that’s
why I believe in supporting no-kill
shelters the first thing you can do to
support no-kill shelters is to donate to
them donating just a small int mount
will really help them because without
the funding and the staff they can’t
take care of that many dogs and the next
thing you can do is volunteer
volunteering is super important because
they always need help walking the dogs
cleaning the cages and it really helps
the dogs have a better quality of life
in the shelter I believe in only
volunteering at no-kill shelters and one
of those shelters that I’ve been to is
paws Chicago last year I spent an entire
day shadowing everything that that’s
involved with paws Chicago including the
business side meeting the CEO and just
seeing all the people that work within
the shelter and the animals every day it
was amazing to see how sustainable they
kept their business but the reason that
they are able to stay open is because
people continue to adopt these dogs it’s
extremely important to adopt dogs from
shelters because without without
adopting them they’d have nowhere to go
and we just have we’d have no room to
take care of more dogs so getting my dog
from a shelter was an amazing experience
and you might think well oh I don’t have
time for a dog or I just dog they’re too
much energy for me if you go to a
shelter there are plenty of older dogs
that still need homes that can be
perfect for your lifestyle if you are
allergic to dogs
there are hypoallergenic dogs that don’t
shed there’s truly a dog for everyone so
that’s why I believe everyone should get out there and adopt thank you