My name is Boomer. I’m a 5-year-old Fila Brasileiro, a Brazilian mastiff, Fila for short. You know, just like the tennis shoe. I was named after a big orange tabby cat and not a football team. (That is a true story because Mom named me herself.) I have tiger stripes, but Dad says my stripes are called “brindle.”
Dad says the Fila is the national dog of Brazil. Don’t know where Brazil is exactly, but I know it’s a long way away from where I live. I live with my Mom and Dad along with 2 other dogs and 7 cats in Arlington, Texas. Arlington is between Dallas and Fort Worth.
My mom says I prove that anything good can happen to anyone in America, animals included. Here is what happened to me. I was supposed to go to the pound and had no home; had no one to love me. Dad says my sister was with me, but I don’t remember her. Some bad people (Dad called them “Gang Bangers”) had me, my sister and several pit bulls at a house somewhere in Arlington. A man Dad works found us and tried to help us, but couldn’t keep us all. That’s when he called Dad and Dad called Mom at work and asked if I could become a member of the family. To this day, Mom doesn’t know why she said it without even thinking, but she said YES! That was on Thursday, 16 February 2006, when I was about two months old and weighed 15 pounds. (I’m all gown up now and weigh 120 pounds. I’m small for a Fila.)
I was very thin and hungry and had no toys. I wasn’t scared when I met my Dad; I liked him immediately, but I was a little scared when I came to my new home and had to meet my Mom and all of my instant brothers and sisters. Boujeaux, the old Bouvier (He went to the Other Side on 8 October 2009.) didn’t really care whether I was there or not, but Baby Girl wanted to play and play so hard, she scared me. I had an instant playmate.
The cats were cool except for that Clarence cat. He is white and very fat. (Mom says he broke the record for the biggest cat to ever weigh in at Jason Little Road Animal Clinic in Arlington and they’ve been in business for 30 years. He’s 29 pounds and supposed to be on a diet and Mom says I’m NEVER to call him fat because it’s not nice.) He thinks he is superior to people (except Mom) and most of all, dogs. He really likes Mom a LOT! He thinks he’s so smart! He talks about us dogs all the time and I get so tired of it. He says things like, “Cats are smart and dogs are dumb!” Dad says to just “consider the source,” whatever that means. I hate it when he tries to sleep in the dryer. Now how dumb is that?
If you think I was lucky to get to live with my Mom and Dad, then I got even luckier on Sunday, 7 May 2006, when Mom and my Aunt Tootsie were in the parking lot of a local discount store and Mom spotted a small blonde dog running around like she was lost. Mom was afraid the dog would get hit by a car and immediately called the dog to come to her. The minute the dog heard Mom’s voice, she ran as fast as she could, jumping in my Mom’s lap in the front seat of Aunt Tootsie’s prized Mercedes. Mom later said she didn’t know what scared her the most, the thought of the dog getting hit by a car or the dog tearing the leather seats in Aunt Tootsie’s car.
Once the dog was safely in the car, Mom slammed the car door shut and Aunt Tootsie drove the dog straight home. The minute Dad saw Mom on the driveway holding the dog, he yelled a couple of naughty words followed by, “You’ve picked up a pit bull!” My mom didn’t believe or maybe she didn’t want to believe it because she was always so afraid of pits because people say such scary things about them. Mom put all of that aside because she said pits don’t usually find homes if they go to the pound and told us all that the dog was the newest member of the family and would be called Maggie. Maggie and I became instant friends.
My life was so great with Dad, Mom and all of the cats (even Clarence), but I didn’t know that in December of 2006, it would get even better.....
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