A few days ago, I was talking to my friend and our main subject was our dogs. She said to me, ‘It’s a good thing that you met your dog’. The words she used in Korean was ‘다행이다’. It could mean a good thing, luck, mercy, and so on. As there are many options for translating the word, it engraved in me mixed feelings.
He wasn’t our first choice from the shelter. We met two other dogs briefly hoping that we could have one of them. But our situation and timing weren’t right and they met their new families before us. However, we saw our dog there and liked how he presented himself before us from the opposite side of the glass wall. We decided to try him out when we saw him again a couple of weeks later when we visited the shelter second time.
He came to our home on Christmas Eve last year 2018. One week later, we went back to the shelter and signed on the final adoption paper. It took me for over a month to figure him out and teach him basic command and rules. It’s been only two months since he came into our life. But I already feel that he is our dog. Our family.
So about the word that my friend said to me, I still can’t explain my emotional reaction toward it. But I’m very much thankful he came to us. Perhaps, it truly is mercy for all of us.