One of my daughter Ellie’s favorite animated movies is Hotel Transylvannia 3 Summer Vacation starring Adam Sandler as the voice of  Dracula. Every time we watch it, her face lights up when Tinkles aka Bob makes it on the big screen.

If you’ve seen the movie, Tinkles is Dennis’ pet pug who he disguises in a trench coat and names Bob to trick his parents and to help him fit in with the other cruise ship guests. It’s quite hilarious and endearing at the same time.

Here’s a picture of Bob and Dennis from the movie.

Cutest pug ever. Seeing this over and over is what started the whole “wish.”

Ellie set in her mind that she was going to have a pug of her own and made it her mission to find “the” pug before her 8th birthday on November 23rd.

She wanted our boxer Sparky to have a pug to play with and having always had big dogs, she was looking for one that was more her size.

We started searching that summer looking at pug rescues, dog sites, adoption centers, pet stores, owners selling pugs, everything under the sun, but never found one that quite caught her eye. As we were nearing her birthday, we gave it one more shot and decided to visit our local dog pound. No small dogs, except for a two-week old puppy German Shepherd. When we found out what breed it was, it was a hard no. Small now, but not for long.

As we were leaving the pound, my husband Sean jumped on his phone on Craig’s List and there it was! A listing five minutes before from a young family in Mesa who were looking for a loving home for their two pugs, Mia and Hulk. They were four years old, had grown up together and were needing a bit more TLC than the owners could give them. I immediately jumped on a call with the owner and the next day, we were welcoming not one, but two new members into our family – pugs just like Ellie had wished for and never gave up hope finding.

I love sharing this story of how our family of five became seven overnight and how Mia and Hulk came into our life through a wish, pure fate and the right timing.

Rule of Life Lesson #132: