Finding Trouble and Finding Peace

Torri Bobo
Zeta Tau Alpha

Downtown therapy, massage therapy, retail therapy and even Group Therapy in Five Points all provide relaxing means for us all to escape from our everyday stresses as college students. While some may find the extravagance of indulging in chocolates, Tiffany and Co. and Pink Sorbet to be a lot more appealing than running long-distances or going out drinking with friends, we all have a gateway or leisure in order to keep ourselves from going crazy.

A new method I have recently discovered and want to promote among our student body is animal adoption. Two weeks ago, I fell in love at PetsMart. He was a little fluffy black dog with light-tan features, curled up in the back of the store and sleeping heavily. 

I had been looking around at adoption centers for weeks. I started off at Pets Inc., where I found the animals to be a lot more sincere and humble than the grumpy adoption clerks. Then, after unsuccessful try after unsuccessful try with Pets Inc., I ventured out and found Pawmetto Lifeline, where the owners and adoption clerks worked with me day and night to find a puppy to take home and spoil.  I had finally decided that at 11 a.m. on a Saturday I would drive to PetsMart on Harbison to pick up the small white lab during the adoption showcase they have every weekend, but was heart broken when I came to find that she had been adopted 30 minutes prior to my arrival.

I was so distraught and sulked around the store with my friends Tyler and Lauren for a while, until I saw Oakley. At the time I found him, his name read “Trouble” on the cage. He was described as being a 12-week-old Chow and Rottweiler mix that would eventually reach the size of 60-80 pounds.  I took him out of his cage and he stretched out his paws and instantly fell asleep on my shoulder. I knew that it was a sudden change of heart, going from being so distressed about the white lab to falling in love with a puppy named Trouble, but I decided that things always do fall into place and at that moment, I had fallen in love with Trouble. He kept true to his adopted name; he was trouble, but it was unmistakable that when Tyler and I co-adopted the puppy, that he would never go a day without being smothered with love and attention.

We left the shop with a six-pound, black fluffy puppy and hundreds of dollars worth of toys, clothes, collars, food and treats. Since that morning, and after weeks of arguing with four stern boys who wanted to name him “Bruce,” (which sounds like the name of a male stripper), Trouble eventually turned into Oakley.  Although it is a huge responsibility, having Oakley has turned a lot of my stress into play dates with other dogs, walks in the park, cozy naps when it’s raining, training, trips in the car just so he can hang his head out the window and bringing him along whenever I go to tailgates or to socialize with my friends. Oakley is a lot of time and love, but he is also just a puppy and most of the time extremely helpless.

I have found that since adopting the puppy, my stress has slowly dwindled down and made me more laid back. Even holding or playing with Oakley, whether it's for five minutes or six hours, has a way of relieving my tension and focusing my attention to what is truly important at that moment.

You don’t have to adopt a puppy to relieve your stress. You can simply volunteer at a shelter, babysit an animal for a friend or even “rent a dog for a day” at Pets Inc. Trust me when I say that sometimes all you need is to have the responsibility for another life and soon you’ll find that your current troubles are a little less important and the enjoyment of that moment far more imperative. So go out and play with a puppy. You never know- you may find yourself falling in love with Trouble, too.

Here are some websites for local shelters in Columbia where you can adopt and volunteer.

SQ Rescue : sqrescueinc.org

Pawmetto Lifeline: projectpet.com

Pets Inc. : petsinc.org

Columbia Second Chance: columbia2ndchance.org

Torri is a senior studying business and mass communications. You may contact her at bobot@email.sc.edu.