💜How To Save a Life: A Drowning Puppy, Rescued💜

I frantically looked around, my eyes searching, pleading for someone to talk to. I saw a lady sitting on a picnic chair, smoke in one hand, phone in another, not paying me any attention. (Maybe on a break? I hoped... It turned out she was.)

I asked her with a very high-pitched squeaky voice “CAN I HOLD IT?”

She laughed and answered “Of course you can.” I picked up this creature and could not wrap my head around how adorably small and sweet she was.

At the time I’ll admit I thought she was a boy. I didn’t check… I just thought that the name they had given her, “Flip” sounded masculine… So here I am standing on the veranda of the dog shelter, a pack full of dogs freaking out in the background, the busy street in the forefront and this tiny creature pressed up against my heart.

I live too active of a lifestyle with change eminent in the future, winds of adventure always whisking me up, up and away. Due to this, I can't commit to anything serious... especially not the life of something so precious.

An idea sprang to my head and I got the most-wide eyes full of the excitement of a kid at Disney World and run into the office shouting at the lady behind the desk
“HOW DO I TAKE THE PUPPY HOME?”

She looked at me and said “You can take it home today if you want.”
I was so overwhelmed I didn’t even think, I just said “YES!”

She began explaining to me the fostering process and how if I wanted to keep the rescue at the end of the term, I could adopt but that it was a trial run for both of us, to see if we were a good fit for each other. I just started nodding and agreeing to everything she said.

I told her what I just told you, about my travel obligations and my uncertainty of being able to keep her forever. To that I was told that having a home for the puppies that are found, like she was, away from the other sick dogs was the best thing I could offer them.

So with that, I brought her home and after a couple of days realized he (who I had named "Bear") was a she (but I decided to keep the name anyway as it seemed to suit her.)

She was quite the menace after the initial shock of being moved wore off
(seen here eating my flowers.)

(And here eating my hair)...

At first she was the cuddliest companion imaginable but that only lasted for one day and I got really scared that I wasn't going to be able to handle her. Every day I had a very serious question to ask myself “Do I take her back?”

Two weeks flew by before I even knew what hit me! Bear had learned to go up and down stairs, "sit" and let me know when she needed to go outside. An alarm in my phone reminded me it was the date I had agreed on to take her back to the shelter so she could get vaccinated and be permanently homed.

That morning, I woke up and got everything ready to bring her to the shelter. I was feeling pretty let down. I had grown really attached to her and didn’t want to see her go...

"But you know you cannot keep her..." Said a voice inside my head so, since I agreed to take her back, I reluctantly took her to the shelter.

When I got there, I let the woman who had given me Bear on that first day know that I was bringing her back like they asked for her shots and to be re-homed.

She asked me if I was interested in taking her back after her medication (tugging my heartstrings) but my head spoke for me and said I would prefer her to be re-homed to a family who could take better care of her since I still have to travel a lot in and out of the country and wasn't sure how I could manage having her with that.

They thanked me for taking care of her and asked me to bring her into quarantine. I held her as she shook, scared from all the other dogs barking at her and brought her into a secure room where I was asked to place her into a crate. She nuzzled into my shoulder blade, pressing her nose into me and looking up at me with her perfect little eyes as if she was begging me not to let go. I gently helped her in and closed the door, meanwhile a dozen other dogs in the room started freaking out, barking and biting at her.

We looked at each other for a long minute, I swear she asked me why I was leaving her through my mind...

My heart sunk and my tears started to well up. I tried to get out of the room but a few of the dogs were swarming me, biting at my legs and keeping me from the door. I started to stress out and could not help but to think how much more unbearable it would be for her.

She started crying- this high pitched horrible sound bellowing from her tiny lungs, flooding the whole room. I couldn’t keep it together anymore. My eyes swelled up and I walked painfully back through the room, and out the door. I got on the bike and through tears had to go back in and explain to them her diet, what she liked, what she didn’t like and to call me right away if they couldn’t find a home for her.

Then I proceeded to (what I have heard referred to as) ‘scream-cry’ for the next good hour.

Urban Dictionary: Scream Crying
An intense, dramatic, and often ridiculous expression of emotion, where loud crying is punctuated by the occasional scream.

I couldn’t see the whole way home as my tears were flying off my face and into the wind behind me. When I finally got home, I stumbled off the bike, to the side of it where I fell into the exhaust and burnt my leg.

Flinging myself on the ground, I rolled around on the driveway now double crying from my heartbreak and now too… the burning flesh. I managed to drag myself to the yoga deck where I sprawled out on a yoga mat and cried like a child, mercilessly.

My brain asked me “Was it really that bad?” referring to the room where I dropped her off. It was hard for my mind to make sense of anything of this but my heart was on a rampage and decided I could not leave her there. I was going to take her in until they had a house ready for her to go to. I could not let her sit in a cage with all the other dogs in there scaring her- I just absolutely could not.

I’m not going to get into this in depth but what happened after a couple of hours was an enormous fight between my heart vs my mind. Mind’s side was that she was too much hassle when I just got settled in somewhere where I could afford to be a little bit selfish, to make decisions without worry for anyone else, to just be here without a care, to come and go as I pleased… and now I had a gremlin destroying everything. But I could not and would not leave her so I broke down and challenged my mind defiantly. Around the time this fight was at its peak, the dog shelter called and told me she had been given all of her shots and could be picked up if we wanted to take her. I answered “Yes” without hesitation.

I picked up this phenomenal creature from a perfectly kind, loving animal shelter. The truth is, she would have been taken care of there and someone would have picked her up in no time. But she was mine and I was hers now.

The technician working with her told me she cried like I described above for over an hour after I left her. “Funny” I said to him “So did I.”

When I got her back in my arms, my heart lit up with this unimaginable joy. I wholeheartedly love her. She’s so ‘naughty’ most of the time; she defies me, she pees all over the place, she bites all of my clothes, she sinks her teeth into my skin any time she can, she uses my hair as a chew toy… But I love her.

This is my story to whoever is reading this- you might just not know where you’ll find love. Love can come in many unexpected places and unexpected ways but when you find it, it is the greatest gift in the entire world.

This little angel has to grow up without milk, warmth and attention from her mother which just breaks my heart into a million pieces. All that said, I have committed my heart to mothering her until she is able to find a family that can take her in permanently as I can’t do that with visa restrictions. She’s a rebel just like me, and it’s the most challenging and rewarding experience having her around. She even does yoga and eats her beets and carrots.

(Bear's rendition of "corpse pose")

Open your heart up, possibilities you never expected may surprise you in the sweetest of ways.

XO,