anyone and everyone that is my friend knows that it is no secret that i prefer dogs to cats. it's nothing against cats...except it actually is. i'm not one to normally hold grudges but i feel that it is acceptable in this way, shape, and form. when i was a year old, we moved into a new house. it was a nice house, but we were not the only residents of the abode. the previous owners had left or "forgotten" a cat back at the house. well when i was about three years old, i started to display an interest in this fluffy animal that purred and meowed at me when i stroked its fur. its black/gray fur with white stripes. my parents always beckoned me away from the creature as they were and are not presently "cat people." but i chose not to listen. and that is when havoc was wreaked. one night i was in my parent's bedroom stroking the feline when all of a sudden, the fiend whipped out its paws/claws and drove them right down my petite right arm while it preceded to hiss at me. i let out a wail and my father stormed in and picked up the cat while crocodile tears poured down my face. he physically threw the cat outside while my mother put some neosporin on my scar. we never saw that cat again.
but that was not the only offense that cats have given me. cats have always sensed some sort of oppression i have on them. i was over at my friend taylor's house this past year. taylor eventually wants to become a veterinarian so it is ideal that she has 16 pets. i was sitting on her couch one night when her gray house cat rubbed it's body against my leg. i asked taylor what that meant and she responded with, "than means it likes you." i was not convinced but you never know. i picked up the feline and it was perched on my lap for about ten minutes when all of a sudden, the cat leaped over my head and over the couch with a high pitched screech. my startled self let out a scream as i discovered a scratch along my leg as a little present from that cat. needless to say, i have chosen to refrain from cats for the rest of my life.
proof that taylor's dog is better than her cat.
on the contrary, i am a massive dog lover. my parents always joke that i will have a million dogs instead of children which has about a 5% possibility. i have always had a shared interest in dogs; when i was five years old i begged my parents for a puppy. then one day, my mom brought home a golden retriever puppy from a litter that had been brought to her work. i was in love. the puppy, which we named murphy, was my favorite thing in the entire world. i played with him and he played with me. it was love. i watched murphy grow up from a feisty puppy to an even feistier 75 pound dog. unfortunately, we only had murphy for a year as he was trouble around the house. he chewed and he ripped miscellaneous objects around the house which did not satisfy my mother. i remember the day that my mom explained to me that we could no longer house murphy as he was just too much of a hassle. once again the crocodile tears returned and i honestly do not remember much after that.
this is the night when i met murphy. i was a little excited.
this is also murphy. notice those shoes. ;)
my family went for about a year after that without a canine. my parents noticed how much i desperately wanted another dog and they went and did their homework. on my sixth birthday, they surprised me with sadie, who along with murphy, was a golden retriever. funny story, she actually was murphy's litter mate. unfortunately, her owner could no longer take care of her. my parents relieved her of sadie who was HUGE. sadie did not have any boundaries. she jumped on my six year old self and wanted to get to know me. i was accustomed to this murphy who was not as big as sadie was. still, i was euphoric to have a dog again. :)
i grew up with sadie. she was always a friend. she lived outside so she didn't always smell the greatest and she always had mattes in her fur, but that had nothing on her personality which had the power of the solar system altogether. sadie was a barker and also preferred jumping on her hind legs to try to sniff us, etc. that's when my mom introduced the squirt bottle that we sprayed her with water while she jumped. she eventually stopped but she never quite learned basic commands that other dogs her age knew. i tried to teach her to sit, but through out her life, i do not think she ever learned. i'll be honest; she was kind of an idiot, but she was my idiot. every night, we would let her inside for a few minutes to come warm up. she had a crate inside our house that she laid in whenever it stormed (she hated storms), and during the winter. when she was not in her cage, we would let her explore the house under our supervision. she would leap up the stairs and then run as fast as she could back and forth acting like a speed demon. we would laugh until we cried at the site of her running until she could run no more. what a nut. she also enjoyed pancakes that my dad crafted every saturday morning. she couldn't sit on command, but that chick sure as heck could catch a pancake in her mouth, go figure. she loved when i would brush her back or when i would give her ice cubes to chew on, which intrigued her. whenever i was asked if i had any siblings, i would always mention my dog, sadie because that's what she was. i was taking a nap one night when she woke me up with her paw sitting next to me on the couch. whenever i cried, she would let me nestle against her and stroke her fur. she even had a stocking we put out at christmas with her name on it. to be honest, her presents were the hardest to pick out in my opinion. they always ended up rolling down into the street from our elevated driveway, but she brought them out one by one. milk bones were her weakness and she had a love for peanut butter. even though sometimes her barking was kind of annoying, she made a place in my heart that i didn't think could exist.
this is the only photo i ever have gotten of sadie looking at the camera.
sadie enjoys the snow :)
one special thing about sadie that i connected with her through was her anxiety. we were both pretty fearful. we had an invisible fence that shocked her whenever she tried to go past it. once again, sadie could not roll over, but she the boundaries of the fence. whenever we tried to take her to the vet or on a walk around the neighborhood, we would take her battery operated collar off her neck but she was still not convinced. we had to put her in my parents car and physically back her out of the driveway before she was sure she was safe. sadie couldn't stand loud noises either. the fourth of july and thunderstorms probably topped her least favorite things list. sadie calmed me. she showed me that it was okay to have a little bit of anxiety.
when we got sadie, she had heart worms. we gave her medicine, and they eventually went away. she also developed a hot spot and had to wear the cone of shame. for years after that, she was healthy. she almost got into a battle against a rabid raccoon, but other than that she was healthy. as i grew into a hormonal teenager, she grew into an elderly dog. through our transitions, i started to ignore her more and more. i would rather be on my facebook account liking pages rather than hanging out with her. i still loved her, but it i didn't show it as much. maybe i even lost interest. who knows. my parents even interested the idea of giving her away as we never had enough time for her and that she deserved so much more attention. but i couldn't let her go. my parents joked that she would never pass away because she was just that type of dog. haha.
i got through my freshman and sophomore years of high school still raging with hormones. everyday when i came home from school, sadie was waiting on me at home. who knows what she did everyday. all we know is that she never made an enemy. all of the mailmen and deliverymen gave her those stupid milk bones. sadie was clearly much more fragile than she once had been. she could no longer race through our hallways as she once did. i knew that she getting older, but i refused to think about it. at the end of my sophomore year, i went on my high school mission trip with my youth group. i was gone for about a week and was so excited to return home a day before my 16th birthday to tell my parents about it all. my mom picked me up and took me to one of my favorite restaurants. we got about half way through our dinner when my mom looked at my dad and then at me. she then started to bawl and proceeded to inform me that sadie had been put down that week due to health complications that i still do not understand to this day. i was in disbelief. i immediately started to meet those stupid crocodile tears again. i knew i was in public and i just didn't care. i bawled like i had never done before. i didn't eat anymore of my food because i felt sick to my stomach. needless to say, i sobbed all the way home. i didn't want to go to my house because i knew she wasn't there. I'm pretty sure that i didn't stop crying until the next day. all my parents could say was, "i'm so sorry." they knew that nothing could make this situation better and i respect them so much for that. they hugged me and told me that this sucked but it would get better and they sobbed uncontrollably with me. i had never hurt so bad in my life. thankfully they had already gotten rid of sadie's water bowl and food tray but her toys were still scattered all around our house. i couldn't sleep that night. my parents came in and talked. i told them how suckish this was and how i didn't get to say goodbye. but my dad said something so wise. "haley, i honestly think that God took sadie this week because He knew that you would have hurt so so much more if you had been there. your mom and i were in so much pain, but that wouldn't have even compared to what you would have felt. He didn't want to see you hurt like that." that was the most significant statement i had heard and it was so true. i don't think God wanted me to see that because that would have probably hurt me even more than i already did. i thank God to this day that i wasn't there to see her like that. apparently she couldn't walk right before she passed on. when people how i know God loves, this is the story i use.
this is the last picture i ever got with sadie of us together. but it's perfect.
to this day, it still hurts and it still sucks. i still compare every dog that i see to sadie. all i know about that dog was that she was not intelligent but she had love. she loved me at my lowest and she never turned away or left. exactly like Christ. i think that's why God made dogs. i do believe i will see my sweet sadie in Heaven. and that's going to be the best day ever.
this post was definitely one of my more serious ones so i promise i will some more light-hearted ones in the future :) but thanks for letting me tell this story!
