From my early childhood, I have been captivated by animals. My favorite outings as a kid were going to the zoo and even more exciting; the circus.

I would visit my cousins as often as possible because they had a dog. A dog! How cool is that! When my parents came to take me home, it would inevitably end in tears.

My solace would come by way of dreams, vivid dreams, where me and my dog would run through a field and fall in a joyful tumble where my dog would bark with excitement and smother me with licks all over my face.

While getting a dog of my own was always on my wish list come my birthday, my parents were not animal lovers and to them dogs equaled mess and responsibilities they were not prepared to take on.

This did not stop my love for animals and that only increased once I would go on the aforementioned trips to the zoo and watch in awe the majesty of the big cats and the towering matriarch of an elephant troop.

As I grew up, my love of animals never left me, it just got distracted by my being a typical teenager and young adult when the opposite sex and my education took precedence over most of everything else. To be continued…