MORGAN EDELMAN Contributing Writer

This is the second of a series of eight articles about shelter dogs that have been adopted and found their forever home as told through their eyes. This series is part of a senior capstone project that is meant to raise awareness of the importance of pet adoption.

My name is Lily and I am a 10-year-old American Pit Bull Terrier. I was born into a family that just wanted to breed me to make more puppies. When they no longer wanted me anymore, they dropped me off in the middle of Atlanta.

I lived on the streets for a little bit until I was picked up and lucky enough to be brought to PAWS Atlanta, a no-kill animal shelter and pet rescue. That was my home for a few weeks until a lady came in one day and decided that she was going to bring me home with her. I had been living with my new mom for about a month when she got a job in a new city. We were so excited until my mom realized that because of my breed I could not live with her in her new home, so she had to leave me behind.

Instead of bringing me back to the shelter, she began looking for a new home for me with someone that she knew would take really good care of me. She found this family that heard my story and didn’t think twice about taking me. When I got to my new home I had a lot of anxiety and problems really trusting my new family because everyone else who I loved eventually left me. I didn’t want to get too attached just to be let down again.

My new family continued to show me lots of love. Once I realized they were not going to leave me behind, I began to love them back. I have lived with my new family for about nine years now and I couldn’t be happier. All the love I have given my mom encouraged her to be a voice for my breed and begin speaking up against all of the negative attention we get in the media. My favorite things to do now are going for rides in the car and spending the day at work with my mom meeting all of her clients.

Each year, there are approximately 3.9 million dogs that enter shelters and about 1.2 million of those dogs are euthanized. I was lucky enough to make it to a no-kill shelter but not everyone is that lucky. Please take this into consideration the next time you are looking for a new best friend.