How My Dog Saved My Life

This is only a short story, but I have to tell it.

This is Gypsy and she saved my life.

For the past 10 years or so I’ve been fighting a battle with depression, and I even attempted to take my own life a few times, I felt like everything was getting too much and only I was to blame for that. With my brother in prison and my sister in a mental health institute, life became too much for me to handle.

Like I said, I tried to commit suicide several times, but luckily I didn’t succeed. I jumped into oncoming traffic and it swerved, I hung myself, and the rope snapped, and I tried to drink myself to death and downed two big bottles of whiskey straight, but I passed out and woke up in the middle of the road. I decided to visit my doctor and get some antidepressants, but they just made me worse so I tried counseling, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak about what I was feeling. So I decided to accept that if I just keep drinking I’ll eventually die. My parents kept visiting me to see if I was still alive. It was only last year I took a trip to the dog kennels with my sister as she was getting a dog. I walked past this one cage and this German Shepard caught my eye. I looked into the cage and there’s this dog, scared and shaking at the back of the kennel. I don’t know what changed in my mind and heart, but I knew I had to take her home, so that’s what I did. Her name is Gypsy and when I got her home she trusted nobody and was scared of everything. I gave her a teddy and put her in my bed, she just slept there all night. I slept on the sofa so I wouldn’t disturb her, and when I woke she was laying in the sofa next to me with her head resting on me. I'll always remember how scared she was when I had to take her to the same kennel to get her shots, she thought I was leaving her there. A year later and she is now very playful and loves and trusts everyone. Gypsy shows me everyday with love how much she appreciates me saving her from a life in the kennels, but I only wish she could know just how literally she has saved my life, I’m no longer depressed and I’m taking big steps to change my life for the better. She is the best thing to have ever happened to me and when I think about that day she caught my eye in the kennels I can’t help but think... there’s no way this was a coincidence, I was meant to meet this dog and take her home. I saved her and she saved me.

It was fate.