Bocanegra, who was waiting to finish filling out some paperwork, said that Joaquin has wanted a dog for years.

“We surprised him today,” he said. “He’s been asking for a long time.”

The decision to get a dog wasn’t made lightly, Bocanegra said. He wanted to make sure that his son could handle the responsibility before they committed to it, he said.

“Joaquin has been learning via dog sitting for the last two years,” he said. In that time, he’s never had to force his son to wake up to take the dogs outside or walk them at night – Joaquin was happy to do it.

“He loved it,” Bocanegra said.

The only thing that the family had to pay to take Raider home was his licensing fee – thanks to the event, which was sponsored by the Bissell Pet Foundation, adoption fees were waived. Fees for puppies and dogs range between $150 and $175, said Erika Gamez, animal shelter manager. The shelter will be able to get up to 90 percent of those waived fees reimbursed to them by Bissell.

“It’s a great event to participate in,” she said. On a good day the shelter adopts between eight and 10 animals. On Saturday, in addition to the 15 dogs that were adopted, two cats and one bunny were also adopted.

Gamez said that buzz created by the event got more people to adopt earlier in the week, too, in order to guarantee they would get the pet they wanted and she anticipates more people coming in on Monday to adopt. People will still be talking about the event, she said.

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