Cinnamon's Spicey Life

This blog is written more to remind myself of what the title says than to remind you, my readers.  You’re probably smart enough to always listen to the little voice in your head that tells you to do or NOT do things that come up in your life.  Me? Well, I like to think that I listen most of the time.  But this time, I didn’t listen, and I’m lucky that things turned out the way they did.  I will be making sure to get my hearing checked or clean the wax out, or turn up the hearing aids so that when I hear that “little voice” in my head…..I will listen.

I don’t know if I’ve even told the story of Pebbles, my bulldog here.  If so, bear with me, you’re gonna hear it again.  I was friends on Facebook with a woman who does dog and horse rescues.  In fact, I bought my first horse Lucah from her. And like all the good folks that do rescue, she had other friends that do rescues, and they network on Facebook, and the word gets out about this horse, or that dog or cat that needs help and with some luck, money, and God’s grace they are able to save some of these animals.  Miami, Florida is a one way 5 hour drive from here.  I’ve had to make the drive a few times for work…..and I HATE it.  The only thing I hate more, is the city once I arrive there.  I am sure that there are beautiful parts of Miami, but all I’ve seen has been dirty and undesirable.  They also have a very HIGH kill ratio at their shelters.  At least the one calling itself the Miami/Dade shelter.  So, I’m minding my own business one day on Facebook and I see this face.    She was pictured with another dog.  The other dog looked to be in much better shape than Pebbles.  Well, although my heart went out to her, there was no way I was going to drive to Miami for a dog.  I just couldn’t afford to do that.  And even if I had the gas, I certainly didn’t have the adoption fee.  So, with a big sigh I just let the idea of her out of my head.

Well, like I’ve said, these rescue people do alot of networking.  Two weeks had gone by and all at once on the woman’s page that I had bought my horse from I see that two dogs had been brought up from the Miami shelter to Ocala.  And you guessed it, Pebbles was one of them.  At that point, the little voice in my head said, “You don’t have an excuse now, you have to go get her”.  And so I did.  Here’s a picture of what she looked like when I brought her home.    Yes, those are her ribs showing.  She was pitiful.  Had diarrhea really bad.  She’d just been neutered, and had an infection, so she was in a sad sad shape.  In my misguided way, I was trying to get some weight on her and I was making things worse.  I soon figured out that she was allergic to beef.  So after about 2 months of getting up every two hours to take her out, or if I was “too asleep” and didn’t hear her go to the door, cleaning up one mess after another I finally started to see some progress.  What I didn’t see, was how terribly attached Pebbles was to me. She had been so mistreated and neglected that the first show of love toward her must have been like a life-giving breath.  She followed me everywhere.  Didn’t want to be out of my sight.  She hated the vacuum cleaner, and the riding lawn mower.  She would try to attack them because she thought they were hurting me.  If someone would walk toward me, and I didn’t speak first, in a voice that she knew to be friendly, her hackles would go up and she’d start to growl.  Perfect personal  body-guard type dog.  But I didn’t need that.  So all her attention got to be too much for me.  I felt like, if I stopped too quick, she’d run up my butt.  Literally because she would.  Many times I’ve felt her head hit the back of my knees when I would stop.  So, I began to think it was time to find her another home.  I loved her, but she was too dependent on me.  I had to lock her up if I wanted to ride my horse.  She also thought he was going to hurt me, so she didn’t like him either.  So, last week, I ran an ad.

The responses where amazing.  I finally whittled it down to this young girl that swore to me that she was in love with Pebbles.  The plan was that I would bring her to work, she’d come and meet the dog, spend some time with her, so that I could see if they hit it off and make a decision.  I didn’t want any money, I just wanted a good home for her. The way this girl sounded, it would be the perfect fit.  Well, the day came (Saturday) and Pebbles and I headed to work.  She was only going to be there a few minutes so I didn’t tell the boss.  I should have I know…..but.  Well, one thing after another kept happening to this girl and she couldn’t get there, or was on her way, or there was another hold-up.   Red flags were going up, and that little voice was telling me not to go through with it.  After several phone calls and a dozen or more text messages, I’d just about made up my mind to cancel the whole thing.  I got the last text that she would be there in 15 minutes.  I was closing the store in 10 minutes.  My husband was there, and we were going to walk out on time, and if she hadn’t shown….too bad for her.  Three minutes before we close a customer comes in and I’d already closed out the register, so he had to wait for me to open the computer again.  By the time I was done with that guy it was 25 till and in walks the girl.  The little voice was yelling at this point…”don’t do it, send her away”.  Pebbles seemed to like her though, and the girl swore she was even more in love with her now that she’d met her.  I kissed the dog goodbye and watched them leave.  I made my husband drive home while I cried.  The only thing I’d managed to make the girl promise was that if it didn’t work out, she’d call me and I’d come and get her, no questions asked.

That was Saturday.  Today is Monday and I just got back from a round trip drive of 5 hours.  To bring Pebbles back with me.  I wanted to cuss the girl and tell her a bunch of stuff.  Especially when she had lost (supposedly)  the new leash I’d sent with the dog.  And she said it wasn’t going to work out because she couldn’t understand why Pebbles, when taken to a strange house, with strange people, and two small dogs, and one huge male dog, would be nervous and snap at the big dog.  To her, she’d given Pebbles a chance, and it hadn’t worked out.  None of that matters.  And I didn’t say squat about it.   Pebbles ran to me when she came out of the house, I put her in my car and we left.

It’s clearly obvious that this dog was meant to be in my life.  And for better or worse, I won’t let her go again.

peace,

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