The $100 Dog

Summer 2011. I knew a ten-month deployment was coming, and I couldn't stand the thought of my wife alone in our little rental for a year.

So, Craigslist. A litter of pitbulls in Chesapeake. One left: a white female, eight weeks old.

We drove out in our half-broken car, and this spunky little muscle of a puppy came bounding at us like she'd been expecting us.

I had to drive to Navy Federal to pull out the cash. A hundred dollars. It was genuinely all we could afford.

And as we turned to leave for Navy Fed, that little white puppy came running after us across the owner's living room.

She'd made the decision for us.

Zeeba

It took a week to name her. We were coming off the highway at the Little Creek Road exit when it hit me: Zeeba. True story, it came from me mispronouncing "Ziva" from NCIS. My wife's eyes lit up. Zeeba it was.

That hundred-dollar dog guarded my wife through every deployment and underway I ever sailed on, and met me on the other side of every homecoming. For fourteen and a half years she was the best dog, and she shared countless memories with Chrissy and me. We hated to let all that go in December of 2025.

Best money I ever spent. It's not close.