A dog with Anxiety

The first day that I had ever met my new dog Minnie was when my older sister brought her home from the humane society. Of course, her plan was to keep her for herself since she lived alone. But then her dad (who is not my dad) decided to buy her a dog since he didn't know she already had one. This new dog's name was Legacy. She's very small and is about the size of a small mini purse.

We had only gotten to see Mini and Legacy a couple of times while my sister owned them but she loved them both very much. This arrangement had lasted for a while, maybe a year, before she had to go to North Carolina for college. That's a 7-hour drive from where we live; not to mention that the apartment that she had didn't allow dogs.

So what was the solution? For them to live with us of course. I was very excited about this by the way. They were the first pets I had ever gotten and I got 2 of them. And since the first night they stayed with us I had fallen in love. Legacy loved sleeping under my chin whenever I lay on my back. And she could easily fit there since she was such a tiny puppy. And Minnie, well she loved sleeping on my bed with me, sometimes she would even let me cuddle with her.

And the best part was that they would always come up and lick the tears off my face whenever I cried. They were the sweetest and it always made me happy when they would lay by my side. And I only grew to appreciate them more when I started to develop anxiety.

I was constantly nervous and felt unsafe but they were always there for me. And this brought me to my problem. You see, Minnie never liked staying in the cage. It got to the point that one day while the family had gone out to eat she had broken her cage. How did we know? Because when we got home the cage door was completely broken off.

So instead of buying a new cage and keeping her in there, I decided to just keep her in my room and close the door whenever we left. I thought that maybe keeping her in a more open safe would help her feel safer. That didn't work either because whenever we got home there would be scratch marks covering my door.

This made me very worried. It was obvious that she had separation anxiety and didn't like being kept in closed spaces. But why? Was it because of something her previous owners did to her? Was it something the people in the shelter did to her?

The answer wouldn't have mattered anyway though. Because she was mine now and I wanted to do whatever I could to protect her and make her feel better and Legacy did too. Legacy was basically the height of a mini water bottle and Minnie was maybe 5 times her height. Despite this Legacy loved spending time with Minnie and would always play with her. And whenever Legacy wasn’t sleeping with me, she would be sleeping with Minnie. They were always so adorable together.

And I do think that over time Minnie had gotten better with us leaving the house but it always pained my heart to leave her alone. No matter what she was a part of my family. Unfortunately, Minnie is gone now but she will always hold a special place in our hearts. As for Legacy, my sister had come back from college and had taken her back for a while but Legacy is now permanently living with me and the rest of my family.