Before we even talk about our story, let’s talk about Roxy’s.
She was a rescue, and we don’t know much about her past except for how she had been returned to the Humane Society many times, and not many owners kept her for long. She used to be required to be in a home with more dogs than just her, and she has separation anxiety. I can see why. She used to be a front desk dog at the Humane Society, but that’s all I can remember.
When we were first about to take her home, the staff came to say goodbye- Roxy was popular. She hugged all of them in the circle, to which they were all so happy, and then came to sit in my lap- as if she knew who would be at her forever home. It was heartwarming.
When we got her, we did a test to see what kind of dog she was, and we found a lot of dog breeds. I only remember one specific statistic, but I’ll list them all. She was 73% Pit Bull, and she also had German Shepherd, Golden Retriever, Labrador Retriever, Beagle, and Mountain Curr.
They all mixed to make the perfect dog.
Now, onto our story.

Hi, my name is Dusk, and I adopted Roxy around the end of fifth grade. It was around then, as we’ve had her for three years, I’m about to be a freshman in high school, and I was eleven when I got her. Anyway. We had just finished caring for a foster dog- her name was Minnie, and she was an incredibly shy, old girl- when a couple of months later, my mom found a dog she fell in love with on the HSHV website. Her name was Roxy, and she was about six or seven years old. So, of course, we decided to visit! When we got to the humane society, she was beautiful, and we took her for a walk. Roxy pulled, but after much begging in the lobby (just me saying “Mom, pretty please”), we took her home!
Sixth and seventh grade were both struggles, I was terrified and figuring things out, and had some other things going on that I’d rather not say here. But during all of it, Roxy was always there. She was the perfect dog, gentle, sweet, and not bitey. Sadly, she bonded with my mom, but it’s okay because she still loves me. Also earlier on, we wanted Roxy to be my service dog. So we set up a GoFundMe because of how much it costs, and we raised around two thousand dollars, before taking her to the training center and finding out that she was too sick to be a service dog. We instead decided she could be a regular dog, as we didn’t want to push her more than needed. Skipping years of time together with the perfect old girl, in December of 2023, I had to go somewhere, and Roxy knew it. I didn’t know how she was doing, but getting home from that to my dog being the happiest girl in the world was an amazing feeling.

On April 27th, 2024 we adopted her little sister, Zephyrus (Zephyr). Unfortunately, she was adopted from a breeder instead of the Humane Society, but my mom researched this and it paid off. Zephyr is a feisty dog, and Roxy puts up with her. But this isn’t about Zephyr.

Roxy helped me through the hardest times of my life and is here to support me with her glittering eyes through the next challenge: going to high school full-time. She’s the perfect dog, I, no, we, couldn’t ask for anything more.

Roxy