Happy Time for Us

By Dani Halliday, 2016

Dani holds Happy at the Franklin Pumpkin Fest.
Dani holds Happy at the Franklin Pumpkin Fest.

Who doesn’t love puppies? In Franklin, we attended the annual Pumpkin Festival on Main Street. Our favorite sections of the festival were hosted by the Humane Society of Franklin and they had puppies. These puppies were tiny with little pink noses. They were named after the seven dwarves from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Our group fell absolutely head over heels in love with Happy, the tiny black and white spotted puppy. Sam even cried when she held him.

Happy and his siblings were only a few weeks old and snuggled in blankets as they were passed around between the squealing children (and group of 20- to-21-year-old college students researching Highway 64). We debated stealing Happy, who apparently had been adopted earlier that day. The tiny little ball of fur was perfect (as all puppies are), and we wanted to take him back to Elon with us.

Alas, we could not steal the puppy, or any of his siblings. We walked away, teary-eyed and looking longingly over our shoulders back to the children petting the small animals. We wanted to rejoin them, surrounded by snuggly puppies, but we had research to do. We returned to the crowd of the festival to see what we would find next.