Feeling a little nostalgic...

So I'm feeling a little nostalgic right now.  What exactly is it I'm thinking of?  My dog (and thus far the best dog ever!), Abby.  Abby had a pretty rough life.  We got her last December (the 6th to be exact) and right away we knew she was kinda messed up.  A family friend had heard about a breeder that was being shut down by the police because they had too many dogs and they'd be arrested if they didn't get rid of a bunch of them, so through a long, and odd, line of events, Abby came to us!  We were told that she was about 8 months old and was a registered toy poodle. We knew she hadn't really been taken care of because her teeth were in terrible shape and her copper colored curls were extremely thin.  She also never barked and was very jumpy.

After almost two months, her hair was thick and healthy and she was beginning to growl at my dad (she didn't like him very much for some reason!).  Then one day she got startled and fell, breaking her front right leg.  I took her to the SPCA as soon as possible because they were the only vet clinic that didn't charge outrages fees!  Her leg was indeed broken and a cast was placed on her poor, little leg.  While at the vet, the doctor gave her an exam and told me some shocking stuff.  

By looking at the amount of plaque built up on her teeth, the doctor said there was no way she was younger than three years old.  This came as quite the surprise.  Knowing that the "breeder" was really most likely a puppy mill, this bit of info meant that Abby had been (most likely) kept in a cage for at least three years.  It explained why she was so odd and why her leg broke so easily.  

We continued to take her back to the vet every two weeks, giving her vitamins and taking very good care of her, and gradually (after about three months) the cast came off.  I was so excited!  My little doggie was finally healed and ready to begin a new life!  She was more playful than ever and had progressed to actually barking at my dad!  I was so proud!

Then one night, about a month later, friends were over and she was tired of being on some chair.  She decided to jump down (it was less than two feet down).  The whole thing kind of happened in slow motion.  She looked like she had successfully landed... and then she fell.  The noise that she made was the most heart wrenching sound I've ever heard.  I knew that there was no way she had escaped re-breaking her leg.  

The next morning I took her back to the vet and sure enough, it was re-broken.  As anyone can imagine, getting her leg fixed the first time was extremely expensive and the vet informed us that fixing it again would end up being more expensive.  There was also no guarantee that it would ever heal right or never break again. 

We weren't left with many options.  We either got to choose:

1. Put her down

2. Go through the whole process again

3. Amputate her leg (with no guarantee that the other leg would never break)

or 4. Give her over to the SPCA and let them decide what to do.

By giving her up, the SPCA would either pay to fix her leg and give her the proper treatments to make her a healthy dog or put her to sleep.  The difficult part of this is that once you surrender your rights, you don't get to know what ends up happening.

As difficult as it was (and believe me... it was so incredibly difficult) we knew the best thing for Abby would be to give her to the SPCA in hopes of healing her and giving her a happy life.

Here's where it gets really sad.  Giving her up was, most definitely, the hardest thing I've ever done.  Nothing has broken my heart more than saying goodbye to Abby.  The final look she gave me has I handed her over to the nurse will never leave me.  This sounds pretty dramatic and a year ago I would have thought I was a loser for saying this, but I guess until you have a pet that you love more than anything, you can't really understand.  

Even now, a month and a half later, it still stings when I walk in the door and don't have her run to greet me.  Even simply writing all of this killed a little piece of me.

Abby was (and hopefully still is) the best dog ever.  You can't look at these pictures and not agree that she is the cutest dog in the whole world!

These are just some of them!  I know this was a super depressing and totally doesn't go with the theme of my blog, but I hope that by getting it all out there like this things can start to get better!