Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Valentine (05/16/05)
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TITLE: Our Lucky Valentine | Previous Challenge Entry
By Sue Edwards
05/18/05 -
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We picked him up on Valentines day 2000. We gave the breeder $150.00 and took home a frightened little fellow, a pure Dalmatian of the cutest kind. We named him Lucky Chance. He was our Lucky Valentine.
As the pup grew he was such a joy to watch. He hung close to our older Boxer as if he was glued to his side. A puppy extension for our aging Boxer.
We noticed later that something was not right with the little guy. He never seemed to understand our directions or even hear them for that matter. Our Lucky Valentine was deaf.
We never debated returning a piece of our heart for a refund. While we knew we could return him, we also knew it to be a death sentence. He was deaf and He was ours.
People sometimes thought it odd that the only way we could call our beautiful pup was by waving our arms in a come hither fashion. That often would not work if he had his eyes glued on a butterfly or momentary bird excursion. The moment his eyes would fix on our commotion a quick running into our arms and jumping excitement would commence.
The quickest way to call Lucky, we eventually discovered, was to call our Boxer. Lucky was never far from our Boxer and he took our Boxer's lead.
The little fellow was such a free spirit in spite of his bondage to a silent world. He swam in our ponds and chased leaves in the fall on our 42 country acres. He never met a stranger and would take right up with any visitor. We couldn't bear to take away his freedoms because of his deafness by keeping him tied or caged, although in the back of our minds we felt his freedom could be a danger with his disability.
Our fears were realized one day right after he had turned two years old. Lucky was hit by a car that he never heard coming. As he lay there and I gathered his little injured body to rush to the local vet I wondered if we had done the right thing. Would his life had been better caged? He died that day at the vet.
While I wondered and cried for three months about Lucky's freedoms and bondages after that day, I finally concluded that we had given him freedom and he had given us so much in return.
We buried him beside the pond he loved to swim in and the fall leaves always seem to fall toward his grave.
He will always be our Lucky Valentine.
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