Finn turns 10 years old

My son turned 10-years-old on Sunday, at least my four legged son did anyways.
I adopted Finn over nine years ago, when he was just a young pup, just a few months after I moved to Minnesota.
A couple of friends who volunteered at a St. James animal shelter convinced me to come cover an adoption event.
One of the dogs up for adoption was Finn. He has two different colored eyes, could run like Hell and was as sweet as could be.
My buddies then gave me the pitch about how Finn needed a home, and since I was single, and my only responsibility at the time was working at the newspaper I would be a great parent for him.
This wasn’t just a friendly pitch either. My friend Kelly decided she would foster him, while I worked on finding a place to live because where I was staying at the time did not allow dogs.
After doing some apartment searching, Kelly then made another pitch to seal the deal; her oldest sister had a spare basement, a decent size space, with a bathroom and shower. If I gave her $300 a month, I could stay there.
A couple of weeks later we were moving our stuff. Finn came with.
He was still a puppy, so I would drag him around with me while reporting. He would attend school board meetings, community celebrations, and when city council meetings were going on, I would look over and see the police chief and other department heads petting him.
At one point, my friends who made the pitch for me to adopt him, let Finn ride in the ambulance with him during the parade.
I also dragged him along to my first date with my now wife. He hopped in her car like he owned the place, while we drove around from lake to lake, hanging out and getting to know each other.
At one point, Finn decided to tear the fabric in her car, something he had done in mine and other peoples cars (including my friends who told me to adopt him).
I thought this would be my first and only date with her, but she decided it was kind of funny. In case you are wondering, we have not gotten it fixed all these years later.
I’ve also dragged Finn from place to place over the years. Originally from Wisc., he moved from St. James, to Kasson, then to Warwick, R.I., then to the Metro.
Despite being to a lot of places, meeting a ton of people, dogs, and even cats, Finn still enjoys the small things: baseball games, car rides (he has mostly gotten out of the habit of chewing the lining of cars) and of course his pup cups.
For his birthday this year he got to enjoy all of those things, and he looks as young as he did, when I met him at the shelter all those years ago too.