Best Friend

Let me tell you a little bit about my best friend.  Her name is Sydney and she is a 4 year old german shepherd.  I adopted her from the local pound about 3 years ago.  She was a dog that was severely abused and neglected, it was so bad that she stayed at the pound for about a month and was still massively underweight.  She was abused by a man and to this day she is still fearful of men. 

The first time I saw her in the pound, she stole my heart.  She was so timid and afraid but she still leaned out to lick my hand.  I visited her a couple of times and she warmed up to me rather quickly.  But I was worried about her reaction to my kids.  They are healthy rambunctious boys and I knew she feared men, so I was nervous the first time I took the kids to meet her. 

It was love at first sight.  She has never been nervous around them at all.  She knows they won’t hurt her on purpose.  I knew I had the one dog in a million when the first night she was home, my youngest fell off of the couch and onto her and she never once nipped or tried to bite and she was sore too because she was fixed just the day before.  It did take her almost 3 months to quit barking at my then husband whenever he came home. 

She has had a lot to deal with in her life.  She was abused before I got her, she was accidentally run over by the ex, one week later, she was out in the yard and he started the truck and it scared her so she ran away.  It took a week to find her.  Then this past December, somebody shot her on her own property.  She was shot twice in the chest and the vet said she was the luckiest dog he had ever seen.

I would completely understand it if she lost trust in the human race, or struck out before she was hurt again.  But she is nothing like that.  It does take her awhile to warm up to new people but she is not the least bit mean.  She loves people and is the friendliest dog.  I can’t help but wonder why she still trusts people.  I wish I could forgive and trust so quickly. 

I tend to put up walls when people have hurt me.  But I am slowly learning to trust people and to let people into my life and heart.  Maybe Sydney is right to slowly trust people.  It would be foolish to trust everyone I meet and to open myself to everyone, but it is also so very foolish to keep myself hidden behind the walls I have created.  

The lessons I have learned from my dog.