Courtlin Celebrates One Year With Tater [GALLERY]

On March 27th of 2020, my life changed for the better. It was an uncertain time, with the pandemic just beginning, so lots of things were getting cancelled. That included my annual birthday trip, which was supposed to take place in Nashville in early May. After cancelling the Airbnb and getting our money back, I decided to use what I had saved on something that I've been wanting forever: a dog.

At work one day, I opened up Pet Finder just for fun and starting browsing through dogs in our area. I am a huge lover of pugs, so I narrowed my search a bit to see if there were any available. That's when I came across Wade. Wade was a 3-year-old pug and jack russell mix that was in a foster home through Last Hope Animal Rescue. Since we work with Last Hope for our Furry Friday segment, I reached out to them right away just to ask about him. Within a week and a half, he was mine, and his name became Tater Tot.

I wasn't expecting things to happen so quickly, which is why I went into a bit of a panic. As someone who has only taken care of themselves for the past 6 years, I doubted my abilities as a dog mom. I was so afraid that I would do something wrong or that he wouldn't be happy with me, that I could hardly sleep or eat those first few days. Slowly but surely, we spent enough time quarantined at home to get used to each other, and now I can't remember what it was like to come home and NOT have a puppy greet me with kisses!

Tater is a very unique little guy. He is obsessed with socks to the point where he will stare you down until you take them off your feet and give them to him. And he doesn't just do it to me, he does it to ANYONE, which is always weird when I have people over. He also loves watching TV, which is fine with me... until he spots an animal. When a dog, cat, horse, human in an animal costume, or anything resembling an animal comes on the screen, he runs right up to it and barks at them. And don't even get me STARTED on his weird noises!

Tater is my best friend and I love him more than any dog on the planet! Here are some photos from our first year together, starting with the very first one I ever took of him: