Adoption

My adoption story started out like any other in the land of happiness, but I'll start from the beginning. When I was eighteen years old my sister gave me a puppy from her blue nose pit that had gotten loose and pregnant by a black Labrador. He was the most handsome puppy you could ever see and when my sister said they were getting rid of him I took him instead so they could still see him. Well, I took this puppy to my apartment in Arkansas, I renamed him Cole after the demon from the original Charmed series it was my favorite at the time.

Not even three months after I brought him back to Arkansas with me, my now ex fiancée and I were fighting it got to the point where I called my parents to come from our hometown to get me two trips later, they were dragging me back with my puppy. I honestly was grateful for this because I wasn’t strong enough to do so myself. After three months of me being back in my hometown, my stepfather told me that I needed to get rid of my puppy. Now I was smart and was still looking for a job, I had an inheritance that would have set me for life. But I was saving for a house, so I reluctantly took my dog to the shelter where they took him from me.

My plan was to go back once I had an apartment and get him, but they shipped him to a “different shelter.” I believe that they put him down but that set the mood for the rest of the year for me since I had come back after one grandfather’s passing. It hurt to give him up after losing someone that I had been so close to. After a few months of sulking and disappointment I got a job at a local pizza place things started to go right for once. When the end of February rolled around my father told me he wanted me to stop sulking and to be better. Naturally I guilted him hoping that he would allow me to have another puppy, he said no but to keep a look out on the shelter’s page. I did so and told him a few I

Liked but one stuck to me more than the rest he was my Labrador/Mastiff mix, I had fallen in love with him the moment that I saw his picture, not long after I picked him and showed him to my stepfather my paternal grandfather passed as well. I broke down feeling helpless like no one understood the way I felt the next day we buried him since it was what he wanted, twenty-one salute and all. I can still hear the gunshots ring in my ear and anytime I pull the trigger on my nine at the range I think of him and his service to the country. The day of the funeral my stepdad told me to get into the truck and drove me to the shelter.

I honestly figured we were buying him a dog and not me, I had been suicidal up to this point and once I saw him, I hoped and prayed he was mine and no one else's. When he got into the truck he handed him to me, “Now that I got him for you, I expect you to stop sulking over Cole and to clean up after him he is your responsibility. Not mine nor your mothers Ellie, remember that.” I had happily agreed with the situation and terms that he had after all it was the same with Cole my other dog. I loved having him around, I took him outside to play to the park and started searching training lessons online to help with his behavior.

But, in June of that year I was bringing him home from a friend's house her back window was busted we didn’t think he could get out the window of her jeep, so I sat up front with her. I look back to my puppy and he had managed to start to climb out the window, I tried to reach for him but to no avail. My friend slowed down from sixty to forty by the time he hit the pavement. Before the car stopped, I was out the Jeep and running to him without looking where I was going. I managed to pick him up as an eighteen-wheeler truck went around me to avoid hitting me.

I picked him up and took him to the animal hospital to be able to help him, but they went able to do anything for him but bandage him up, he needed surgery and had terrible nerve damage on the right front paw. By august I was able to give him the thousand-dollar surgery that he needed, I love my three-legged puppy-dog and wouldn’t change him for the world. I thank every god and goddess that I was blessed to have such a dog with me to help and protect me.

In my case my puppy was able to pull me out of a dark place by being his loving self. In his special way he adopted me.