WARNING: THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONG ONE

I swore when my beloved cat died, I would never have another cat again. I also swore that I would soften the blow of her glaring loss in my life by adopting a dog shortly after she passed away. It was a plan I put in place the day I looked into her tired, old face and realized our time together was coming to an end. You see, Bugsey wasn't just a cat. She was my best friend of 20 years. She was the one who licked my tears away when I cried, who stole all my chapsticks and kept them as her "babies", who treated an old soccer sock like it was her prized catch of the day, and who thought the most comfortable place in the world was on top of my keyboard or notebook.

The day she died I was away on a cabin retreat with some friends. I remember having this sense of foreboding before I left for my trip, as if I knew something bad was going to happen to her. I gave her a hug, kissed her on her head, and whispered, "I love you, baby girl." She was 25 years old. Her health declined rapidly. One day she was my old girl who loved to sleep all the time but still got around, and the next she would hardly get off her heated blanket. Mom called me to warn me of the inevitable. We decided she was too frail to be put through the trauma of a car ride to the vet, so Mom made sure her last day was filled with ear rubs and canned tuna (her favorites). I asked Mom to put me on speaker, and I told Bugsey how much I loved her, thanked her for choosing to love me for 20 years, told her how sorry I was that I couldn't be there for her, and I promised her that we would see each other again one day. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Mom called me the next morning to tell me she was gone.

Even though that was 2 years ago as of last week, I still cry when I think about her. I miss her more than I ever expected to miss a little animal. 20 years is a long time to have a pet. A blessedly long time.

But, my life didn't go as planned after she left. My job took me to a town and an apartment that didn't allow animals. For every special occasion, all I asked for was a dog. I bargained with my then boyfriend (now husband) that if he got the dog, I would come and take care of it every day. I did the same with my parents even though they now lived an hour away. No one budged.

D and I were married in the fall of 2017. With the chaos of the wedding and merging two lives together, we didn't have time to focus on a new animal. So, I contented myself with his sweet, old dog Haley, a hound/chow mix who wasn't too keen on me, but we co-existed.

Then Christmas rolled around, and D was talking about this dog his friends adopted. A little beagle/basset mix who was all paws and ears. I wrinkled my nose at him mostly because I had my heart set on a dog that didn't shed like a poodle or shih tzu. As it turns out, the little puppy was supposed to be my Christmas present! I felt so bad that I agreed to meet him and see if we were a fit. His foster mom brought him to my in-laws' house, and it was love at first sight.

Unfortunately, as it turned out, the little guy was already adopted up North, and he wasn't ours to have. I was heartbroken. I felt like my dream of having a dog of my own had evaporated with that phone call.

But now I was a woman on a mission. I scoured the pet adoption sites looking for my dog. I'd narrowed it down to 2. One boy and one girl. The boy piqued my interest because he looked like a beagle/basset mix, but at 1.6 years old, his profile said he only weighed 6 lbs. His name was Moco.

I decided to forgo a Christmas shopping trip with Mom by fooling her into going to the Humane Society with me to meet Moco. D didn't even know what I was up to.

I walked into the shelter and asked the woman behind the counter if I could take a look around at the dogs. She gladly ushered me in, and that's when I saw him. His big, brown eyes locked with mine, and I felt a click in my chest that told me I knew I was his owner. The next thing I noticed was that he'd lied on his profile page. He wasn't 6 lbs, but more like 43 lbs and on a vet-ordered diet! He sat huddled in the back of his cage, looking up at me with complete uncertainty. I didn't want to come on too strong, so I sweet talked to him for a few minutes before making a lap around the facility to look at the other dogs. The old ones who had been surrendered because they required a little more medical attention were the ones who broke my heart the most, but I knew Moco was going to be mine. So, I came back around to his cage and knelt down to slide my fingers through the bars. Never so hesitantly, he made his way over and gave my fingers a little lick.

That's all it took.

I asked the lady behind the counter if I could visit with him, and the next thing I know, I'm filling out adoption papers and texting D what I'd done. I remember being so nervous as they reviewed the paperwork because I was positive dozens of other couples had put in applications for him. How could they not when he spent the entire visit sitting on my feet and resting his head in my lap? Who wouldn't want to adopt such a sweet, lovable boy?

The adoption counselor came back with a serious look on her face and asked, "So when do you want to take him home?"

The second the reality sank in that I'd just adopted a dog and that he was mine, I wanted him home with me. We didn't have a single thing ready for him. No bed, no crate, no food bowls, no leash, nothing. But there was no way in heck I was leaving him there for even one night.

As I signed the final paperwork and went through the process of getting my information programmed into his microchip, I could hear him howling in his crate. We'd agree it was the safest place for him while I handled all the "adult" stuff. He was so upset I'd left him!

They gave me a bag of his food with instructions of when to feed him, told me to schedule a vet appointment within 72 hours of us getting home, and took a very blurry gotcha-day photo (because he was sooo excited to be out of the cage and with me) before we were out the door.

It all happened in hyper speed. One minute I'm loading him into my car and driving to the pet store, and the next we're at home and D and I are trying to figure out what to name him because no matter what we say or do, he acts like "Moco" is a foreign word to him. I tried every Harry Potter character, but nothing got his attention (a total heartbreak for me because he would've made a great Dobby or Neville). Then D, ever the Braves fan, started naming off names of his favorite baseball players, starting off with Hank, for Hank Aaron. Immediately, his head turned. Inwardly groaning, I tried saying it...and he whipped his head around to look at me expectantly. That was it.

So, Moco became Hank aka Writer Dog aka Hank the Tank.

At 1.6 years of age, he's still VERY MUCH a puppy. With the same level of clumsiness as his mother, he is constantly running and crashing into things and thinks my underwear is a rare delicacy he must consume every chance he gets. He loves to have his chest and belly rubbed, and every toy he gets he makes it his mission to demolish within minutes. His favorite place to be is snuggled under a blanket next to me, and he is my shadow, following me everywhere I go...including the bathroom. The only way I can convince him to take a bath is if I smear peanut butter on the tile wall of the tub, and he prefers music by Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Etta James and despises the likes of Luke Bryan and Sam Hunt.

While I've always loved dogs and have had several dogs in my lifetime, Hank is the one who has managed to wiggle his way into my heart the most. I love those brown eyes and that sweet smile he gives me when I scratch behind his ears. I love the way he goes nuts trying to lick away my tears and make me laugh when I'm upset. I love that he sits in the chair beside my desk when I have to stay up late to meet a deadline, and he has a nose that can sniff out anything. Simply put, I am totally and completely in love with him.

But as I said, Hank the Tank comes by his name honestly. He's my sweet, weird, klutzy boy, and I absolutely love him for it. And I hope as time goes on and I share some of his more "special" moments, that you will come to love him, too. For now, meet Hank. Isn't he cute??