Abbie

In the fall of 2003 I flew from the North West to North Carolina to pick up a Rescued Papillion dog that we were planning to adopt. When I got there I was introduced to a very frightened, very small dog whose entire body had been shaved because of a skin condition from being kept in a filthy environment for the first eight years of her life. She had been used as a breeding dog and was in poor shape; in fact the biggest part of her that day was probably her large eyes that begged for acceptance. A couple of days later she flew home with me and became part of a family that included other dogs, cats and humans that were there to help her recover and discover that being a dog wasn’t all that bad.

She came to us without a name but finally selected “Abbie” as a sound she could respond to. In the past eight years she slowly grew back her hair and became a full fledged dog. She did have her moments of confusion, at first not knowing that outside was ok to run around in and that food could be made to taste good and that humans were there to scratch ears and provide comfort when the thunder storms rolled through.

But finally the terrible conditions she endured the first half of her life have caught up with her and her liver has started to fail. We started to fear the worst when she stopped eating and developed a hepatic breath. The lab report came back today and the vet gives her only a few short days to be with us.

There are some who cannot see, or understand the attachment other humans have for their four legged friends, but we find as much comfort from the animals in our life as we hope they get from us. Abbies trip across the rainbow bridge will leave a hole in our hearts, but her memory will keep her alive in our hearts.