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Yes, and she is the best thing that ever happened to us.Lilly was the dog nobody wanted. She was a stray, she has a “pit bull head,” who had had a litter of 9 that were just old enough to be getting adopted out themselves, and everyone who visited the shelter was infatuated with them. I can’t say I blame them, those were adorable puppies.But when we saw Lilly and were told that she was the proud mama, she caught my attention. When I asked to meet her, I was told that she had had several visitors and everyone seemed to love her, but no one had even filled out an adoption application for her. My heart broke.This was the picture of my girl that we got to see before we met her. When they brought her into the meeting room, she instantly walked up to me, then put both her front paws in my lap and started licking my face like I was the best person in her world. After a minute of this, she walked over to my boyfriend and did the same to him.(As a side note, he did not want another dog at all. I had set us up to foster a Min Pin/Pomeranian mix and when it fell through, I was crushed. He agreed to go to the shelter “just to look” and swore we wouldn’t get another dog. The second Lilly jumped in my lap, his facial expression was “well now we HAVE to have this dog.”)I took the adoption application home to fill out and as I was completing it, my boyfriend began saying “well, I don’t know if this is a good idea, maybe we shouldn’t get another dog, I don’t think you should fill out that form.” after hearing this, I told him “you heard that lady. Everyone loves her. No one has even turned in an application for her. I’m not leaving her there.” And promptly took the application right back to the shelter to submit it.This was on April 29th, 2018, I was told it would be approximately 2 weeks before I heard from them. On May 1st I got a call asking if we still wanted to adopt her. We set it up to get her on the 5th, the next day we both had off to go get her.Throughout the week between meeting her and bringing her home, I asked every question I could. I was told they knew nothing besides that she had a litter and they had spayed her. The day we go to pick her up, however, they then tell us that she’s both heartworm and Lyme disease positive. We were crushed by the news but determined to help this girl. (Several hundred dollars of testing later, they had given us information about the wrong dog, but managed to ruin the joy of her adoption day entirely.)This picture was how I announced to our mothers that they were becoming fur-grandmas again.Bringing her home broke my heart at first, because Lilly was terrified to get in the car with us. It was so hard to get her into the vehicle that it has us both convinced she was dumped from a car, or found in a high-traffic area. With much patience (and many treats) we got her used to the car, and she learned that leaving with mom and dad always resulted in coming home. She loves car rides now!At first she was quiet and shy, but if she came near you she would absolutely shower you in love and affection. Now, she’s a sweet, smart, loud-mouth, huge personality lady and I could not love her more.She has bonded to me as “her person” and as long as I’m home, she’s right beside me. She never wants to miss a moment with her mama, and I don’t want to lose out on my Lilly.She has two little Big Brothers. We already had litter mate boys that are about a year older than Lilly. She absolutely adores her brothers, especially our runt, Paxton. She treats him almost like a puppy. I always say that’s the mama in her.Our Lilly May has brought so much love and joy to our lives, I could not imagine my life without her. Shelter dogs are by far the most loving, amazing babies you can bring home. Even on the rare occasion she does act up, Lilly is still my heart and soul in living form. My sweet flower baby 🌸(Edited to correct spelling errors).

I'd stopped into Petco to pick up food for my 2 cats, and I stopped by the adoption area to say “hi" to the cats currently housed there, like I always do. All 4 of the local shelter's enclosures, or cat condos as I thought of them, were occupied. The cat in the upper right cube caught my attention. He was a chunky, all-white young adult male who was, at that moment, up on the raised shelf in his cube having a leisurely bath. He was sitting up in that undignified sprawl that cats sometimes do, with his back legs sticking out awkwardly in front of him, and he was half-slumped against the wall for support. He looked like Jabba the Hutt, if Jabba had been a cat. I had to laugh. He was ridiculous. See for yourself:The shelter volunteer came over and we started talking as the white cat continued to bathe himself. I could hear his loud slurping as the volunteer and I talked. This cat, whose shelter name was Skittles, had been a barn cat for the first year of his life. He was then brought to the shelter, neutered, and had surgery to fix his left eye, which had entropion - a painful condition where the eyelashes grow inward and constantly scrape at the eye.This is one of his profile photos from the shelter's Petfinder listing for him, taken before he had the surgery. I can imagine how painful it was.His eye was mostly healed from the corrective surgery by now, but it still looked a bit red and a little wonky, and I'm certain it was why he hadn't been adopted yet. People tend to pass over shelter animals that look ill or “damaged" in any way. (SMH — their loss.)The shelter volunteer told me that Skittles was unhappy at Petco because he hated being confined in small spaces, and I could totally understand that. As we talked, Skittles finished his bath, and started paying attention to us. Of course I stuck my fingers through the holes in the Plexiglas to give him a little chin-scratching; the volunteer said, “Do you want to pet him?” Without waiting for my answer, she unlocked his cube, and I was face to face with 14.5 solid pounds of curious cat.I started petting him as we continued to talk, and within a few minutes, Skittles was purring. I leaned a little bit into the cube to keep him from hopping out and rested my arm along the floor of his cube, and he almost immediately flopped down and curled into the curve of my arm, his floofy butt in my armpit, and rested his blocky head in my hand, still purring. I kept skritching his head and neck, and the volunteer said with a smile that she'd never seen him connect with anyone the way he was doing with me.Then Skittles happy-drooled on me.For people not fluent in cat-speak: some cats drool when they are extremely happy. But it was an exceptional thing in this case, because Skittles was unhappy in his little cube at Petco; he was stressed, in a loud and unfamiliar environment, and a complete stranger was petting him in a manner that many cats won't allow their “forever human" to do. Yet there he was, showing complete trust in me, and happy-drooling on my hand!Stick a fork in me, I was done. I went home and filled out the online adoption application, had my phone interview a few days later, and the following Saturday, on a freezing February afternoon, I brought my boy home.That was almost 2 years ago. He's 3.5 years old now, and is quite a character. I haven't questioned my decision, or regretted it, even once. And although he hasn't drooled on me since I brought him home, I'm 100% sure he's a happy little dude.(Edited to add photos, and his name: Simon Phoenix, the Demolition Cat)EDIT: Aug. 26, 2019 - Holy cow! Almost 4,000 upvotes?!? I had no idea this many people would be interested in Simon's “origin story.” Thanks, everyone!EDIT #2: September 13, 2020 - I am gobsmacked. Over 8,900 upvotes!!! Thank you all… you guys are makin' me blush. I'll pass the love along in a little while to Simon; he's currently asleep in his heated cat bed and snoring very, very loudly. :) And here are 2 bonus photos of him, because the internet needs more cat pictures. LOLGlamour shot:O hai

If the child were your orphaned sibling, you might be able to adopt at 21.Adoption application and vetting is an arduous process, so you probably would not be taken seriously for a non-relative adoption.Wait until you are married and then discuss adoption with your spouse.