Tinto

“Nico, why don’t you ask for a puppy for christmas?” I was obviously joking when I told this to my brother, but if we traveled three months into the future and looked at my face, you won’t know who’s more terrified, the dog that just got to the house or me. Although my dad gets really angry when we mention this type of topic, my brother and I had an advantage as quarantine just started, and we were “lonely.” I think that this, and that we committed to walk the dog every day, were the things that convinced him. The idea, at first, was that we were getting a tiny dog for the safety of our house, but my dad said if we were going to have a dog, let it be a real dog. So the breed was determined, a Border Collie. The most boring part of this, was the two months that we waited for Tinto (we figured out the name) to grow enough for it to be separated from his mom. The guy that had Tinto lived in Bogotá, so the transport of the dog wasn’t going to be us. We found this other guy that was a driver of an ambulance, and he brought Tinto in a box all the way from Bogotá. My mom was waking me up around 5 AM that wednesday morning to go meet our new puppy. I was in the front seat besides my mom. There was this awkward silence combined with my nerves that was not enjoyable at all, but fortunately we got to the gas station where Tinto was. The guy named Pedro, I think, was holding the puppy with one hand, and with the other he greeted us. Tinto is a cute brown dog, with a white track of fur in the middle of his face, and green eyes. But if you were there, you would probably notice the fear in Tinto’s body, as we were just strangers to him at that point. Pedro passed Tinto into my hands, and he tensioned a lot, his claws were stuck in my arms, and his eyes opened even more, as a sense of fear. While holding Tinto in the front seat of the car, he gradually started to be less tense, and started to trust me. By the time it was thursday, Tinto was already a happy dog.

Before quarantine, I couldn’t even imagine having a puppy of my own but now I enjoy having Tinto. He is already 6 months old, and after some teaching of mine, he is an obedient dog. I think we’ve done a good job, at least he looks very happy. He is surely a part of our family now, and we all love him.