I have had my pet cat Peter for almost 20 years now. When I found Peter he was about 3 weeks old and living in a barn on a country farm. Peter was a runt and if I wouldn't have taken him he would have never survived. When I got him he was skin and bones and his eyes were infected and all glazed over with a white milky look. I took him to a local vet and got some medicine to treat his eyes until they cleared up. He was just a tiny little thing and initially I fed him with a small eye dropper until I got him to a point where he could actually eat on his own. Peter is a long way from skin and bones today and he is one of the longest living cats I have ever heard of at near 20 years old.
Chase is our daughter's dog and Carol and I had ZERO interest in having a dog in our home. We do a fair amount of business travel for our real estate business and Carol has both allergies and asthma so having a dog might prove to be a challenge. This dog came into our home because over the years my daughter payed special attention to me and my real estate business and she learned how to negotiate from a position of strength.
When our daughter was 6 years old she wanted a dog so much that it made her Christmas list and was number 5 or 6 on her list of things that she really wanted. Let me tell you that we didn't even give the dog ANY consideration that year. This went on for a couple of years and when she was 7 she moved the dog up to number 3 on her Christmas list. Still there was no chance of her getting a dog and I have to be honest and say at this point I was saying NO WAY are we getting a dog.
When she turned 9 our daughter had only one item on her Christmas list and you can guess what that single item was... It was a dog and she was willing to give up everything else on her Christmas list if she could have a dog. At this point Carol and I looked at each other and we knew that if our daughter was willing to give up everything she would get for Christmas for a dog...we were going to be getting a dog. It is very obvious that our daughter had learned the principles of "GOALS and FOCUS" that year and that Christmas she got a dog that she named Chase.