"Arf..."

“Ding-dong,” I heard as I pushed the doorbell to Kara’s house. As I listened for the pattering of feet racing towards the doorway, I suddenly heard a loud, high-pitched, intimidating “ARF!” As I saw Kara’s welcoming face in the doorway, I tried not to notice her dog jumping up and down in excitement.
“Hey! Coco! Shh… Calm down,” Kara scolded. “Hi. Come on in so we can get started on our algebra homework.”
“Okay Malina, stay calm, it’s only a dog." I said to myself. "C’mon, she’s miniscule in size compared to you. You’ve been here so many times before. Coco’s fine, she won’t hurt you. Don’t worry about her licks either. Remember that thing you heard that dogs’ mouths are actually cleaner than human mouths.” I tried to console my self as I stepped into the house. I took a deep breath to calm down, but ended up coughing hysterically. There’s nothing like the stench of dog. As I walked up to Kara’s room, Coco followed me and suddenly I felt a wet sensation on my foot. She started licking me. I couldn’t help but to think, “eww…” even though I knew that was rude.
We walked into Kara’s room, sat on the floor, and closed the door in front of Coco. A feeling of relaxation rushed over me as the door sealed itself to create a barrier between that nightmare and me. We started discussing the homework getting distracted with music and phone calls. Then later as I opened the door to go out, Coco was sleeping right outside. The paranoia came right back to me and I closed the door immediately.
“It’s okay,” I told myself. “Just walk right past.” So I opened the door again and sneaked right past Coco without looking at her, thinking that if I didn’t see her, she wouldn’t see me.
Later, as I stepped outside to go back home, I let out a sigh of relief. I don’t think I could’ve survived all the tension running through my body with a dog in the premises. Kara is an exceptional friend, but whenever I saw her dog, it didn’t matter anymore what kind of friend she was. All I could concentrate on was how to stay away from that dog.
It was all because of that one afternoon after preschool. I was tagging along with my cousin while she walked her neighbor's dog. The dog halted and we just stood there waiting for him to keep going. Then all of a sudden he turned around and scratched me. His eyes were so piercing and I was afraid to look straight into them. It stung a little and I was extremely shocked. But he didn't stop there; he went as far as to pee on me!
"AHH!" I screamed as I backed off and started to run away. "Lindsay, can we go back now?!" I begged my cousin.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s just a dog, you don’t need to be so scared.” She said with a bit of irritation in her voice. It may have been “just a dog”, but I was a lot smaller than her. The dog may not have been that big, but it was huge to me and I was really frightened. It was that moment of pain and shock I decided I didn’t want a dog, and I didn’t like them.
“Hey Malina! It’s Cailey,” my friend said over the phone.
“Oh hi Cailey! What’s up?” I asked.
“My dog just gave birth to a litter of nine puppies and we need to get rid of them. I know you don’t really like dogs, but I think it would be cool if you took one,” she proposed.
“You know how much I don’t like dogs,” I reminded her, but I could practically see the disappointment on her face. “Maybe I can take care of it for a little while and see how it goes,” I negotiated.
“Okay. That sounds like a great idea. You can come pick him up whenever you want,” agreed Cailey.

While at Cailey’s house picking up the dog, she told me I could name him. So I decided to name him Brownie. This time when I looked at this dog, it looked cuter than all the others and Cailey had just given him a bath so he didn’t give off a musty dog stench. For the first time since my encounter with that dog a long time ago, I looked at this dog with trust. I could just tell that this dog would be good.
“Come Brownie. I’m gonna take you home,” I told him. Surprisingly he pranced right up to me.
“Arf?” he questioned with curiosity in his eyes instead of the pure evil I had seen before. The next morning I woke up to the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. Brownie was wagging his tail and sitting on my bed. I stereotyped all dogs from that one encounter more than ten years ago. Because of Cailey I learned that not all dogs are daunting and Brownie proved that. The little while that I negotiated for turned into a year, which then turned into forever.