Friday I lost my dog.

When I first met Zeus, I was three months into my veterinary technologist program. We were told that if we wanted to adopt a pet, we get a free adoption of any animal from the Kingston Humane society. This peaked my curiosity. At the time I was living with five other people in a student housing rental. I talked about it with four of the five roommates - the other never came out of her room except at three in the morning to cook her week's worth of food, put it in tupper container and hoard away back into her room. We all agreed that we could use a house mascot and companion - we also agreed not to tell our landlord due to the "no pets" in our rental agreement. Three of us went to the Humane Society and walked past all the hopeful and eager faces. How could we choose just one? We took a few for a walk and one had caught my eye. It was a beautiful 2-year-old golden retriever cross named Vinny. I applied to adopt him right away but then got the disappointing news that he had already been adopted. We went back and again walked the kennels up and down. I glanced into one of the cages to see a large hulking rottweiler curled up on his bed. He lifted his head to look at us and then stepped down from his bed, stretching before he approached the bars of the cage. His nose was a little too long to suggest pure bred, but the most striking thing about his appearance was how his head sloped and sunk on the left side. I passed judgement on him right away. I had a fear of rottweilers and had them pegged as vicious lurking beasts. This goes back to a rottweiler named Malone that my cousin had. It would chase my sister and I up onto the couch and I remember being terrified she would eat us. I bypassed this huge rottweiler right away and continued on looking for that perfect dog. We ended up at the front desk, ready to go home and come back another day. The girl at the front desk was surprised we didn't see any dogs that we would consider adopting. She asked what we wanted in a dog and as we explained she came to the conclusion: Zeus. My mind jumped back to the huge deformed rottweiler that was probably a blood thirsty killing machine and instantly doubted her sanity. She ensured me that he was a gentle, loving giant and he would be perfect. I ended up taking him for a walk just to humor the lady. We walked along side the building, I was sure to always keep him in my sight and be ready to drop the leash at any indication of a threat. The longer I spent with him on this walk, I realized he wasn't this vicious, mean creature. He was just a dog. He wasn't responsible for what he looked like, where he ended up. He was a strong and stoic dog. He was quiet and didn't pull on the leash. I sat on a bench and started petting him and he leaned into me. When I stopped he jumped up with his two front feet resting in my lap and sniffed my face. For the first time I looked into his eyes - looking past the fact that his left eye sunk in slightly from the injury of his head. I saw kindness. He had me hooked. I asked the lady at the front desk what his story was. He was a 5 year old neutered rottweiler that was surrendered to them. He had two previous owners before winding up at the humane society. The first was who had abused him, the second was a neighbor who had rescued him but did not have time for him. They said that he was hit in the head with a baseball bat and that's why he had a dent in his head. The muscle around the area and around the cheek of his face had atrophied. I couldn't understand how anyone could do this to a dog or any other living creature. We applied to adopt him and got the news that they had accepted our application. We picked him up after getting all the dog essentials such as the food they recommended for him, bowls etc. He didn't bark or chew and was completely housetrained.