A Beautiful Friendship

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You often hear of stories where an animal saved a person's life in some magnificent way. Well here's a story about someone returning the favor. When I was eleven, my parents moved our family out of the big city and into the country. While I was pretty cool with this, my brother who is older than me, was not. He would be leaving behind all his friends and the school where people had all liked him. In the city we could never have any dogs, we tried for a while, but it wasn't fair to him, so we'd given him up to a good home where the woman had a yard in the country(He was a Border Collie, so he needed lot's of space). But, when we moved out to the country, our parents promised us a dog each. At first, my brother continued with the angst, stating that dogs only made messes and that they weren't really good for anything. Well, that was until the day we brought home Choco. He was half Chocolate Lab, half German Shepherd, with a beautiful bushy tail and shiny coat. My parents had heard that a family pet had had puppies and so we had gone to check things out-my skeptical brother dragging along, making negative points the whole way there. The lady greeted us so kindly and as we were talking to her, we were all looking around wondering, where are all the puppies? Well, we didn't have to wonder for long! A few moments later, we heard a rustling at the door to our left, and the lady opened it. Inside it was dark, with a red heat lamp in one corner, and all that could be made out at first were five little heads and wagging tails(their mum was laying on the floor with a tired, but satisfied look about her). Well, that was all it took. One of the male puppies attacked my brother with a frenzie of kisses and he was hooked. He picked the puppy up and looked it in the eye and you could see the ice melted right away. That was the one we took home. As time went on, Choco grew from an awkward puppy, into a very handsome dog, becoming my brother's best friend along the way. You'd walk in to wake my brother up in the morning to find Choco there, stretched out next to him, my brother's arm draped over his side, asleep. One day, the two went for a walk, which was quite common, so nobody thought anything of it, although it was noted that they'd been gone rather longer than usual. After about an hour, I heard the front door open and in walked my brother looking relieved and a very guilty looking, Choco. What made the scene even more amusing was the muc that covered them both. My brother (who was about 5'6" at the time) literally had mud all the way up to his neck, and Choco, well, it was everywhere on him, including his head. It was spring time and the runnoff from the fields around us had made the bubbling brook behind our home into a raging torrent and both my brother and I had been warned not to go near it. I knew, but had to ask anyway, "What happened!?" all he said was "Choco jumped in...so...I jumped in after him." Yes, Choco had been drowning and my brother didn't notice the strong current or the muddy bottom, all he saw was his friend- his best friend- in trouble! My brother took the dog out to hose him down and to scold him for being naughty, but that night, after they were both clean, dry and warm, they cuddled up together on the bed and slept. Then I knew...My brother might have saved Choco, but Choco, had been the friend my brother needed and had saved my brother first.