Post by oddball on Feb 27, 2007 20:01:52 GMT -5
I felt my left front leg give an agonizing bolt of pain, and I heard a sickening crack. I looked at my leg as I lay on my right side. A large cut had formed, and blood was beginning to mix into my dirty off white fur. I licked the wound tenderly, being very careful. I tried to stand but found I could not. As I laid there my depression returned, my sister was now gone after I had just found her the day before. My leg was injured, and I couldn’t walk at the moment. I began to fear once again for my life, as thought came to me of my sister and brother. How was I going to find Bridget and Shadow if I couldn’t walk? How was I going to keep my word to Bridget? How? I blacked out, and I dreamt of my family and our mother from way back when we were all still being weaned. I stayed in my dreams for a long time; at least there I was with my family and injury free.
I finally woke up about a half day later, it was dark and I saw a couple other dogs looking at me from a small distance away. I barked at them weakly, but still they remained. They must have figured I was either dead or soon to be, and probably figured I might make a nice meal. I struggled to get to my feet, this time I was able to. I limped past the other dogs, I growled at them as I went by. I limped up to the street level, and I slowly made my way over to the bridge. I went to the middle of the bridge and sat down; beneath me I saw nothing but water. I let my left leg hang at my side, so that I wasn’t putting any weight on it. I now had to ask myself a very important question.
What do I do now? Do I continue on looking for my two missing sisters, or do I just give up on everything? I continued to sit there on the bridge, staring down into the dark water below. I soon looked back at my leg; my struggle to stand and to walk had caused the cut to begin to bleed again. At this point I considered just letting it go, but I soon found instinct telling me to lick the wound again. I complied reluctantly. Soon the bleeding subsided, and I found myself once again gazing into the waters below. I heard cars slow behind me; I figured people were looking at me. I no longer cared, I wanted my family back. A realization came to me, quitting was not an option. At least not now, I still had two sisters left to find and a promise to fulfill. I got back onto my feet and I began to move away from that spot, keeping my one leg in the air as best I could. Once or twice I was forced to put it down, the pain was not as bad as before but I still winced at it. My determination to live grew stronger as I thought about my life so far.
The days following my fall were filled with hope, determination, and pain. Hope was born from finding my sister Bridget. Determination sprang from the promise I had made to her. And the pain part is pretty obvious; my leg was still an immediate issue. Though I had found no traces of my two missing sisters I was not going to give up, they were out there somewhere and I was going to find them, somehow. My search continued as I looked around the city for signs of them. Nothing, I hadn’t found a single thing. I became nervous, where were they? Had humans found them too? Or worse? I wandered about thinking about these things. And I continued on in that train of thought, the next month or so went by rapidly, each passing day yielding no clue as to where the rest of my family was. I continued on for a long time, my hope dwindling bit by bit.
At the fifth month since our abandonment, I made one of the many mistakes that had gotten me to where I was. I was wandering about as usual, sniffing for anything that could tell me where my sisters were. But as luck would have it, I didn’t find them but another older dog. He was of course about three times my size. I stopped as I heard his low growl. He was a Spaniel, and based on his look he had been on the streets for the majority of his life. I began to move away, not wanting to get into a fight. His sudden bark made me stop. I froze, rooted to the spot. I dared not to move because something in my mind told me that he would attack me. He barked again, I remained still. I soon began to feel a new fear that soon took a hold over me. I looked on in a mixed feeling of dread, and shock as the Spaniel charged at me. I was wrong, and as the huge mass of the other dog came barreling down on me, I felt as though after all I had been put through that this was the end. The Spaniel hit me full force, and the impact sent me backwards about two feet. I was down and the Spaniel was coming at me for another blow. Time seemed to slow down, I remembered a hazy vision of my mother, the restaurant worker who had blinded me, my brother Shadow, Bridget being swept away in the river, the humans taking her away from me, but most of all I remembered my promise to find her no matter what.
A strength that had long been suppressed by my depression awoke. I quickly got to my feet and took a stand. I wasn’t going to give up now, not after all I had been through to get here. The Spaniel continued to charge at me. I braced myself for the impact, but also prepared to go down fighting. I planted all four of my feet firmly, not bothered by the pain now running rampant in my broken leg. I didn’t care about that pain, I wanted to survive, but most of all I wanted to see my family again. The Spaniel hit me full force, but as he lumbered on top of me I grabbed hold of his leg in my mouth. Even as he struggled to get me to let go, I held on. Even as I felt the Spaniel bite down hard on my broken leg I continued to hold on to his leg. I would not let go, not now. Finally he began to try and get away, his leg now bleeding from where I was biting. Now I let go, I figured he had had enough. As it turns out as I let go he gave me one last bite before he turned and limped away. After that fight I had suffered a couple serious bites on my already broken left front leg, not to mention several smaller bites and scratches on my back. But in the long run, I was no worse of than I already was. I stood there for a moment watching the Spaniel run, feeling pride in the fact that I stood up for myself; especially at such a young age. I continued to stand, all four legs planted firmly on the ground. I felt no pain from my leg, even as it bled from its new wounds. Pain was an emotion that lay far from where I was then, a distant feeling that was buried far beneath my new found strength and pride.
As I turned to walk away, I saw them approach. The people that had taken Bridget away were now coming towards me. I felt mixed emotions, on one hand I wanted to run. And on the other hand, I wanted to protect myself. The latter was not really an option for me; I was in no condition for another confrontation. The sad thing is I knew it too. I all of a sudden made a turn to run, my fear now beginning to resurface. And at that moment my pain returned as I went to run all out. As my broken leg hit the ground and my full weight went onto it, the pain tore through my body like never before. And without warning I felt myself collapse and roll. I howled and whined in pain. I tried to get to my feet as the humans continued to approach, it was no use my fear and pain had now completely taken hold of me. I had no choices left but to try and fight. As the lead human tried to pick me up I growled and snapped at him. He didn’t even flinch, but just continued on in his quest to pick me up.
I had no remaining options; I had attempted to take a stand. That failed, and I was in no condition to try and run. I had no choice but to give up, I let him pick me up. I was surprised at first in how gently he had done it. With all of my injuries and bad feelings towards people, I was in shock in how gentle these people were being. They carefully took me from the alleyway to a large truck that was waiting nearby. I was taken into the back and placed on a very comfortable cushion. There the man examined my leg and eye, as well as the tooth and claw marks on my back. I was intrigued; I had never been treated so nicely from anyone outside my family. The man continued to check me out. He began to talk to one of the other people in the truck. A woman came over with some bandages and a couple other small things. The man began to clean my wounds, it stung at first. But he calmly said. “It’s okay little guy, no ones going to hurt you. We just want to help. Sorry if this stings a bit.”
I made no more fuss; I simply laid back and let them do their jobs. After all my wounds were cleaned, my leg was bandaged and braced. I guessed they did this in case it was badly broken. I knew it was of course, but they didn’t yet. After all was said and done, I was given something that I guessed was food and a nice drink of water. I felt good, my pain had subsided and my stomach was full of food and water. Something that it had not been in a very long time. A stray dogs life, what can I say. As I began to feel relaxed and comfortable the man closed the door on the cage I was in. I was trapped, the truck was moving, and I had no idea where I was going. In my nervousness I sniffed around where I was, and then I found it. Bridget had been here, and she was alive. But were the humans taking me to where she was, or was this the closest I would get?
For what seemed an eternity I sat inside my cage not moving or making a sound. I just sat there staring intently at the human who was sitting across from me. I wished I could talk to this man, but I couldn’t. I wished I could ask him about Bridget and Shadow, but again I couldn’t. I just sat there and continued to stare at the man. He seemed rather interested in me. I knew this because as I stared at him he stared back. Finally after a while he spoke to me, “Don’t worry little guy. We’re taking you somewhere safe. Someplace where we can get you all fixed up. I remember you, I saw you the other day at the bridge.” He saw me? I wasn’t surprised in the least. I never was good at hiding. But anyways, I continued to watch him and all he did was stare and smile back at me. “We have a little surprise waiting for you when we get to the shelter. That other dog we found. The one under the bridge, she’ll be happy to see you I’m sure. Well, at least I think she will be; when you were barking she started to whine a bit in my arms and she wagged her tail a bit too. But I imagine you were to far away to hear that.” said the man. As long as I live, I will never forget that man. One of the few humans I have ever met that ever showed me true kindness and honesty. Soon after hearing that we were indeed headed to where Bridget was, I laid down and thumped my tail a couple times. The man smiled and went forward in the truck to talk to the others. I simple laid there and closed my eyes. I hadn’t been that happy in a long time, I was going to see my sister again. I was going to be with family again.
The truck came to a stop about an hour later. I had a feeling that the city where I grew up was now far away, but I couldn’t have cared less. Bridget was here, and we could be a family again. Deep down I hoped that my other sisters and Shadow were here too. But I wasn’t going to get my hopes up. The man who had been talking to me on the way soon came and opened my cage up. I made to leap out but he instead gently picked me up and carried me from the truck. Outside of the truck was very bright, after I adjusted to the light I was in shock. I was in a small town far from the city, fields all around and few people. It was a quaint little place, the kind of town you see on those old television shows. I like those old shows, I watch them from time to time when I’m not doing anything else. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
The building I was being taken into didn’t seem like much from the outside, but once I was inside it seemed like a completely different place. There were people everywhere and all kinds of animals. I looked around at all the cages wildly trying to see if Bridget was in one of them. But before I really had a chance to look I was taken into the back of the building. I was again examined this time a lot more thoroughly; my leg was the main focus of everything. They found I had a severely broken leg, the dog bites on it made it worse than it had been after I fell. My eye was no news, but I learned that I had about a forty-five percent vision loss in that eye. In other words things I saw were all out of focus and clouded. My leg was put into a cast that was flexible at the joint so I could walk on it, even though I still only put weight on it when I had to. After all the examinations were done I was taken to a large pen. Inside I saw Bridget and a couple other dogs, Dalmatians of course. I immediately went over to Bridget as soon as I was put down. I felt so happy and it wasn’t over yet, out of the back corner came my brother Shadow. He looked good, his injuries were all healed and he was looking very well fed. He didn’t say much, but his wagging tail told me all I needed to know. The other two Dalmatians now came over; at first I didn’t know them. But then it hit me, somehow these humans had managed to reunite my entire family. My two sisters had been given names by the shelter workers, well actually we had all been given names by the shelter workers. Now I will tell you everything about our names. Firstly my two sisters, their names are Tammy and Splash. Now none of us are really sure why Tammy got that particular name, we think it had some special meaning to one of the workers. Splash got her name from the fact that all four of her paws are black. It looks like she ran through an ink puddle. And the tips of her ears match her paws with that whole splashed ink look. Shadow I already told you about, so I don’t really know what else to say. Now Bridget got her name from the fact that she was found underneath a bridge. Kind of obvious isn't it? I was given the name Trio, but there are a couple of opinions of how I got that name. One is that most of my spots are grouped in threes, most prominent of which forms a band around my right front wrist. I also have spot groups on both hind legs and on my back. But I have also heard I got my name because I survived three serious injuries. Either way my name is Trio.
I lost track of time for a bit after I was reunited with my family, but as best guess we were in the cage for about 3 weeks, I was healing fair enough. Everyone else was doing well. I noted a great improvement in Bridget, she no longer had that labored breathing problem and of course her wounds had healed completely. Shadow was himself, silent but protective of the rest of us. Splash and Tammy never really split apart; I guess they had stayed together until they were picked up. Now Splash is definitely a lot of fun to hang out with. She knows how to have fun, while on the other paw Tammy is a bit of a dreamer and often seems to let her mind wander, just leaving her body sitting there staring into nothingness. I felt like I was home again, and that was one of the best days in all that had happened.
I finally woke up about a half day later, it was dark and I saw a couple other dogs looking at me from a small distance away. I barked at them weakly, but still they remained. They must have figured I was either dead or soon to be, and probably figured I might make a nice meal. I struggled to get to my feet, this time I was able to. I limped past the other dogs, I growled at them as I went by. I limped up to the street level, and I slowly made my way over to the bridge. I went to the middle of the bridge and sat down; beneath me I saw nothing but water. I let my left leg hang at my side, so that I wasn’t putting any weight on it. I now had to ask myself a very important question.
What do I do now? Do I continue on looking for my two missing sisters, or do I just give up on everything? I continued to sit there on the bridge, staring down into the dark water below. I soon looked back at my leg; my struggle to stand and to walk had caused the cut to begin to bleed again. At this point I considered just letting it go, but I soon found instinct telling me to lick the wound again. I complied reluctantly. Soon the bleeding subsided, and I found myself once again gazing into the waters below. I heard cars slow behind me; I figured people were looking at me. I no longer cared, I wanted my family back. A realization came to me, quitting was not an option. At least not now, I still had two sisters left to find and a promise to fulfill. I got back onto my feet and I began to move away from that spot, keeping my one leg in the air as best I could. Once or twice I was forced to put it down, the pain was not as bad as before but I still winced at it. My determination to live grew stronger as I thought about my life so far.
The days following my fall were filled with hope, determination, and pain. Hope was born from finding my sister Bridget. Determination sprang from the promise I had made to her. And the pain part is pretty obvious; my leg was still an immediate issue. Though I had found no traces of my two missing sisters I was not going to give up, they were out there somewhere and I was going to find them, somehow. My search continued as I looked around the city for signs of them. Nothing, I hadn’t found a single thing. I became nervous, where were they? Had humans found them too? Or worse? I wandered about thinking about these things. And I continued on in that train of thought, the next month or so went by rapidly, each passing day yielding no clue as to where the rest of my family was. I continued on for a long time, my hope dwindling bit by bit.
At the fifth month since our abandonment, I made one of the many mistakes that had gotten me to where I was. I was wandering about as usual, sniffing for anything that could tell me where my sisters were. But as luck would have it, I didn’t find them but another older dog. He was of course about three times my size. I stopped as I heard his low growl. He was a Spaniel, and based on his look he had been on the streets for the majority of his life. I began to move away, not wanting to get into a fight. His sudden bark made me stop. I froze, rooted to the spot. I dared not to move because something in my mind told me that he would attack me. He barked again, I remained still. I soon began to feel a new fear that soon took a hold over me. I looked on in a mixed feeling of dread, and shock as the Spaniel charged at me. I was wrong, and as the huge mass of the other dog came barreling down on me, I felt as though after all I had been put through that this was the end. The Spaniel hit me full force, and the impact sent me backwards about two feet. I was down and the Spaniel was coming at me for another blow. Time seemed to slow down, I remembered a hazy vision of my mother, the restaurant worker who had blinded me, my brother Shadow, Bridget being swept away in the river, the humans taking her away from me, but most of all I remembered my promise to find her no matter what.
A strength that had long been suppressed by my depression awoke. I quickly got to my feet and took a stand. I wasn’t going to give up now, not after all I had been through to get here. The Spaniel continued to charge at me. I braced myself for the impact, but also prepared to go down fighting. I planted all four of my feet firmly, not bothered by the pain now running rampant in my broken leg. I didn’t care about that pain, I wanted to survive, but most of all I wanted to see my family again. The Spaniel hit me full force, but as he lumbered on top of me I grabbed hold of his leg in my mouth. Even as he struggled to get me to let go, I held on. Even as I felt the Spaniel bite down hard on my broken leg I continued to hold on to his leg. I would not let go, not now. Finally he began to try and get away, his leg now bleeding from where I was biting. Now I let go, I figured he had had enough. As it turns out as I let go he gave me one last bite before he turned and limped away. After that fight I had suffered a couple serious bites on my already broken left front leg, not to mention several smaller bites and scratches on my back. But in the long run, I was no worse of than I already was. I stood there for a moment watching the Spaniel run, feeling pride in the fact that I stood up for myself; especially at such a young age. I continued to stand, all four legs planted firmly on the ground. I felt no pain from my leg, even as it bled from its new wounds. Pain was an emotion that lay far from where I was then, a distant feeling that was buried far beneath my new found strength and pride.
As I turned to walk away, I saw them approach. The people that had taken Bridget away were now coming towards me. I felt mixed emotions, on one hand I wanted to run. And on the other hand, I wanted to protect myself. The latter was not really an option for me; I was in no condition for another confrontation. The sad thing is I knew it too. I all of a sudden made a turn to run, my fear now beginning to resurface. And at that moment my pain returned as I went to run all out. As my broken leg hit the ground and my full weight went onto it, the pain tore through my body like never before. And without warning I felt myself collapse and roll. I howled and whined in pain. I tried to get to my feet as the humans continued to approach, it was no use my fear and pain had now completely taken hold of me. I had no choices left but to try and fight. As the lead human tried to pick me up I growled and snapped at him. He didn’t even flinch, but just continued on in his quest to pick me up.
I had no remaining options; I had attempted to take a stand. That failed, and I was in no condition to try and run. I had no choice but to give up, I let him pick me up. I was surprised at first in how gently he had done it. With all of my injuries and bad feelings towards people, I was in shock in how gentle these people were being. They carefully took me from the alleyway to a large truck that was waiting nearby. I was taken into the back and placed on a very comfortable cushion. There the man examined my leg and eye, as well as the tooth and claw marks on my back. I was intrigued; I had never been treated so nicely from anyone outside my family. The man continued to check me out. He began to talk to one of the other people in the truck. A woman came over with some bandages and a couple other small things. The man began to clean my wounds, it stung at first. But he calmly said. “It’s okay little guy, no ones going to hurt you. We just want to help. Sorry if this stings a bit.”
I made no more fuss; I simply laid back and let them do their jobs. After all my wounds were cleaned, my leg was bandaged and braced. I guessed they did this in case it was badly broken. I knew it was of course, but they didn’t yet. After all was said and done, I was given something that I guessed was food and a nice drink of water. I felt good, my pain had subsided and my stomach was full of food and water. Something that it had not been in a very long time. A stray dogs life, what can I say. As I began to feel relaxed and comfortable the man closed the door on the cage I was in. I was trapped, the truck was moving, and I had no idea where I was going. In my nervousness I sniffed around where I was, and then I found it. Bridget had been here, and she was alive. But were the humans taking me to where she was, or was this the closest I would get?
For what seemed an eternity I sat inside my cage not moving or making a sound. I just sat there staring intently at the human who was sitting across from me. I wished I could talk to this man, but I couldn’t. I wished I could ask him about Bridget and Shadow, but again I couldn’t. I just sat there and continued to stare at the man. He seemed rather interested in me. I knew this because as I stared at him he stared back. Finally after a while he spoke to me, “Don’t worry little guy. We’re taking you somewhere safe. Someplace where we can get you all fixed up. I remember you, I saw you the other day at the bridge.” He saw me? I wasn’t surprised in the least. I never was good at hiding. But anyways, I continued to watch him and all he did was stare and smile back at me. “We have a little surprise waiting for you when we get to the shelter. That other dog we found. The one under the bridge, she’ll be happy to see you I’m sure. Well, at least I think she will be; when you were barking she started to whine a bit in my arms and she wagged her tail a bit too. But I imagine you were to far away to hear that.” said the man. As long as I live, I will never forget that man. One of the few humans I have ever met that ever showed me true kindness and honesty. Soon after hearing that we were indeed headed to where Bridget was, I laid down and thumped my tail a couple times. The man smiled and went forward in the truck to talk to the others. I simple laid there and closed my eyes. I hadn’t been that happy in a long time, I was going to see my sister again. I was going to be with family again.
The truck came to a stop about an hour later. I had a feeling that the city where I grew up was now far away, but I couldn’t have cared less. Bridget was here, and we could be a family again. Deep down I hoped that my other sisters and Shadow were here too. But I wasn’t going to get my hopes up. The man who had been talking to me on the way soon came and opened my cage up. I made to leap out but he instead gently picked me up and carried me from the truck. Outside of the truck was very bright, after I adjusted to the light I was in shock. I was in a small town far from the city, fields all around and few people. It was a quaint little place, the kind of town you see on those old television shows. I like those old shows, I watch them from time to time when I’m not doing anything else. But I’m getting ahead of myself again.
The building I was being taken into didn’t seem like much from the outside, but once I was inside it seemed like a completely different place. There were people everywhere and all kinds of animals. I looked around at all the cages wildly trying to see if Bridget was in one of them. But before I really had a chance to look I was taken into the back of the building. I was again examined this time a lot more thoroughly; my leg was the main focus of everything. They found I had a severely broken leg, the dog bites on it made it worse than it had been after I fell. My eye was no news, but I learned that I had about a forty-five percent vision loss in that eye. In other words things I saw were all out of focus and clouded. My leg was put into a cast that was flexible at the joint so I could walk on it, even though I still only put weight on it when I had to. After all the examinations were done I was taken to a large pen. Inside I saw Bridget and a couple other dogs, Dalmatians of course. I immediately went over to Bridget as soon as I was put down. I felt so happy and it wasn’t over yet, out of the back corner came my brother Shadow. He looked good, his injuries were all healed and he was looking very well fed. He didn’t say much, but his wagging tail told me all I needed to know. The other two Dalmatians now came over; at first I didn’t know them. But then it hit me, somehow these humans had managed to reunite my entire family. My two sisters had been given names by the shelter workers, well actually we had all been given names by the shelter workers. Now I will tell you everything about our names. Firstly my two sisters, their names are Tammy and Splash. Now none of us are really sure why Tammy got that particular name, we think it had some special meaning to one of the workers. Splash got her name from the fact that all four of her paws are black. It looks like she ran through an ink puddle. And the tips of her ears match her paws with that whole splashed ink look. Shadow I already told you about, so I don’t really know what else to say. Now Bridget got her name from the fact that she was found underneath a bridge. Kind of obvious isn't it? I was given the name Trio, but there are a couple of opinions of how I got that name. One is that most of my spots are grouped in threes, most prominent of which forms a band around my right front wrist. I also have spot groups on both hind legs and on my back. But I have also heard I got my name because I survived three serious injuries. Either way my name is Trio.
I lost track of time for a bit after I was reunited with my family, but as best guess we were in the cage for about 3 weeks, I was healing fair enough. Everyone else was doing well. I noted a great improvement in Bridget, she no longer had that labored breathing problem and of course her wounds had healed completely. Shadow was himself, silent but protective of the rest of us. Splash and Tammy never really split apart; I guess they had stayed together until they were picked up. Now Splash is definitely a lot of fun to hang out with. She knows how to have fun, while on the other paw Tammy is a bit of a dreamer and often seems to let her mind wander, just leaving her body sitting there staring into nothingness. I felt like I was home again, and that was one of the best days in all that had happened.