Sunday, April 20, 2008

Another prayer request

I'd like to ask for your prayers. Today a friend accidentally hit my dog Belle with his car. Her back was broken, and her back legs were paralyzed. I've been going through some extraordinarily rough times lately, and this morning I was starting to think I was back into the good times again, but then while I was working on my English paper this afternoon she got hit. It did not kill her, but there was nothing I could do to fix her so I had to put her down. It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do to get the nerve up to inject her with the shot that makes her heart stop and die. I held her in my lap as she breathed her last. It was very nice for me though, because I was able to call a very wonderful friend of mine who loves animals as much as I do right after I gave Belle the shot so I had somebody to talk to and everything while I was going through such hard times. It was really very comforting to be able to hear her voice on the other side of the phone just being there, and reading bible verses and just knowing that she understood what I was going through. I usually don't let other people hear or see me cry, but this time I was crying like a baby.. I mean, when you love your animals as much as I do, and then suddenly you have to be the one to kill it... It was really hard, because right up to when I had to give her the shot Belle kept looking at me as if she was begging for help, and she kept trying to lick my face, and hide her head in my arms like she used to when she was a puppy and scared of something she didn't understand. One thing that I thought was really neat was how my friend had told me about this flowering tree she had suddenly seen when she was praying for me, and then after Belle got hit, she went back to the same spot to pray for me again, and the whole area was exploding with blooms! It was like a sign from God that He is still there for us, and he knows how we feel. Loosing my dog was still far from easy. Belle and I have been through a lot together. I have had her for over three years. I raised her from a puppy, and she has been a really great dog for me. She has had vices at times, though most everything bad she had grown out of by now. She used to have a bad habit of wanting to kill chickens, but I trained her out of that and she hardly would look a chicken in the eye since then. Actually, she has been kinda protective of the chickens if anything. Like she went crazy if there was a hawk or something trying to attack one of the chickens. Oh what I would give to have her all excited to see me and jump up on me with muddy paws while I'm wearing nice clothes! She never was one to jump up a whole lot, just when she got excited (usually at just the wrong time too.. like when little kids came over... lol) Something she had just recently picked up from my mom's dog is chasing cars. She never used to, and even now she didn't much, she just kinda follows along usually far away from the cars kinda like sometimes little kids will do when people are coming or going. And it wasn't like she even chased everybody that drives by either. Just people coming here or leaving from here she would run after them unless I was out there to tell her to stop. Today when my sister's friend came over he didn't see her, and somehow she got hit.

















Here's one picture I have of Belle from about a year ago.



Here's a picture of her as a puppy- she was soo cute! She liked sitting in this bucket because it was close to the door where I came out. I tried to get her to sleep under the porch where she would be protected, but she refused :)



Here's a picture I took with her this afternoon. I got several decent pictures. i knew what I had to do, so I decided to at least get some pictures to remember her by. She kept shoving her head up against me really hard. And she tried to come sit in my lap, but she couldn't move, and if I tried to move her it hurt her pretty bad. She kept rubbing her face against me, and licking me a lot.
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This is the last picture taken of her before I put her down. She looks fine, but really she couldn't move anything other than her front legs and her head. Also if you look close you will see that her back legs are kinda at weird angles and she obviously does not look at all happy. I could tell she was in a lot of pain. If anybody other than me tried to move her she would snap at them because it hurt her so bad. With me she would just cry, and start looking at me like she was asking me to stop.