She was Meant to Live

It was a rainy day in May, when I was in 5th grade. For a few weeks now I had been excitedly waiting to get my second puppy, a lab. Traveling far isn't an issue when the nearest major city is 65 miles away from you. Such was the case when I was going to pick up my new dog. It was a free-for-all essentially, as you got to pick whichever puppy you wanted. We made it to Saint Maries but many things were immediately amiss. These puppies that were supposed to be eight weeks old were much younger than that, no puppy parents were to be found, and they were running amok. It made my parents and I uncomfortable.

But then, the puppies too, if they were eight weeks old, were too small to be all lab. You could fit one in your hand. My mom told me to go look at the one who was waddling under the camper that was in the front yard. I picked it up, and my heart was taken. She was malnourished and starving, and shivering. I held her up to my face and saw a little thing who had just about given up on living. "Mom, I want this one," I said, and without any hesitation brought her to our car. The puppy grunted-yes, grunted- all the way there. Thinking of names, I thought of my birthstone: a garnet. "Do you like the name Garnet?" She limply wagged her tail.

That was the end of that.

Two days later, we brought a dog to the vets, who as it turned out, had worms to a concerning degree (she was literally pooping out live worms), and was exactly 2 pounds, and was no older than two weeks old. The doctor said she probably would have lived only three more days if we hadn't taken her, and concluded she was most likely the runt. She was so small I had to bottle feed her with puppy formula.

The older Ms. Garnet got, the sooner we realized she was a lab…something. Her head stayed fairly small (or maybe it is average), but her body! She looks like a bulldog. Lab toes, blonde lab color, lab expressions, but the haughtiness of a bulldog.

Garnet has since developed into a very healthy, questionable, happy three year old dog of 91 pounds and will be celebrating her 4th birthday May 2. She is the sweetest couch potato I think is possible, and I am glad that it is so. I am sure she's glad about having a couch 24/7 to lay on, too.