A story...I will try to keep it short. A friend ended up with a German Shepherd puppy...quite unwillingly. He lived in a studio apt, had a VW...back in the 60's. He had no room in his house or his life for
Sheba..as he eventually named her.
Things got even more complicated. He took her upstate one summer, and of course, she got pregnant. She ended up having 11 puppies, in his bathtub!!!! He took care of her and her babies, and found a good home for every baby. He then had her spayed.
They were truly inseparable. You never saw John without Sheba. She would carry the bag with his cigarettes and paper in her mouth every day as they walked back from the corner store.
Eventually, after 14 years, Sheba developed Cushing's disease. John did all he could to keep her happy and comfortable for as long as possible. Eventually, brokenhearted...he had to let her go.
A few years went by and John met a woman, got married and they moved to Virginia. It was a community where a lot of Navy people rented houses for short periods of time. Eventually a couple with a cat rented the house next door. It was a Maine Coon. The cat's owner had told John that this cat was unfriendly and did not like people. Little did she know that the cat came over to John's house every morning to be brushed. The cat would leave birds on John's doorstep. When it was time for the Navy couple to move, they said that John could keep the cat, since they never had any relationship with it...and it spent more time with John than it did with them.
That cat had arrived with a name tag. The cat's name was
Sheba.... Altho John was a skeptic, his wife and I both knew that Sheba had come back to him. It was amazing.
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Here is another story that I have read, and actually saw on one of those specials on TV about special animals.
Mary and her husband Jim had a dog named 'Lucky.'
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Lucky was a real character. Whenever Mary and Jim had company come for a weekend visit they would warn their friends to not leave their luggage open because Lucky would help himself to whatever struck his fancy. Inevitably, someone would forget and something would come up missing.
Mary or Jim would go to Lucky's toy box in the basement and there the treasure would be, amid all of Lucky's other favorite toys Lucky always stashed his finds in his toy box and he was very particular that his toys stay in the box.
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It happened that Mary found out she had breast cancer. Something told her she was going to die of this disease....in fact; she was just sure it was fatal.
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She scheduled the double mastectomy, fear riding her shoulders.� The night before she was to go to the hospital she cuddled with Lucky. A thought struck her...what would happen to Lucky? Although the three-year-old dog liked Jim, he was Mary's dog through and through. If I die, Lucky will be abandoned, Mary thought. He won't understand that I didn't want to leave him!� The thought made her sadder than thinking of her own death.
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The double mastectomy was harder on Mary than her doctors had anticipated and Mary was hospitalized for over two weeks. Jim took Lucky for his evening walk faithfully, but the little dog just drooped, whining and miserable.
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Finally the day came for Mary to leave the hospital. When she arrived home, Mary was so exhausted she couldn't even make it up the steps to her bedroom.� Jim made his wife comfortable on the couch and left her to nap.
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Lucky stood watching Mary but he didn't come to her when she called.� It made Mary sad but sleep soon overcame her and she dozed.�
When Mary woke for a second she couldn't understand what was wrong.� She couldn't move her head and her body f felt heavy and hot. But panic soon gave way to laughter when Mary realized the problem. She was covered, literally blanketed, with every treasure Lucky owned!� While she had slept, the sorrowing dog had made trip after trip to the basement bringing his beloved mistress all his favorite things in life.
He had covered her with his love.
Mary forgot about dying.� Instead she and Lucky began living again, walking further and further together every day. It's been 12 years now and Mary is still cancer-free.