A Rewarding Experience

Life isn’t fair but to avoid all that isn’t fair in life we would miss out on its most rewarding experiences.  In life, love, laugh, learn, lament and labor, or lose the experience.

It all started with the life of a puppy but it wasn’t any normal puppy. He was a black and white Shih Tzu, with a white tipped tail. When the puppy was first born he was about the size of a medium size pear.  This puppy was born with a cleft palate. We didn’t notice right away but after the first day you could tell that something was wrong with it. It was skin and bones and much smaller than the rest of the litter. As we inspected him you could see that the top of his lip was gone and because of that he couldn’t nurse from its mom. We talked about our options and what we were going to do with this puppy. After a while I volunteered to provide whatever care it needed to help it live.  

I soon learned that his condition could only be corrected by surgery and without surgery he would never be able to nurse.  To make matters worse it would cost too much for the surgery to make that an option. With further study I found that you could feed it baby formula with a dropper ever two to three hours. So that’s what I did ever three hours day or night I would go feed that puppy. I learned how to sacrifice my time and sleep for the puppy so it could live. After a while I learned easier ways to feed it with the dropper so it didn’t take as long and I also learned that it was easier to keep the puppy in my room at night so I could hear him when he was getting hungry. I tried to stay positive and by doing that I noticed how much better everything is when you learn how to look on the positive side of life.  As time went on it was clear to see that my learning and labor were making a huge difference in the life of the puppy.     
With time my learning and labor seemed like nothing because my labor became a labor of love. When I got home from school the puppy would follow me everywhere. When he was about four weeks old in order for him to eat I would have to wet the dry crusty dog food so it would get soft and gooey. Then I would smash it up with a fork so it would be all soupy. When I was all done it would look like someone ate some gram crackers than vomited it back up. When I put his food down I would have to stay there or he would stop eating and follow me or start to whine.  Even though he could eat without me he still wanted me there. He also liked to play with me more then with the other puppies.  He had the cutest personality and was always wagging his tail. No matter what was going on he could always make me laugh. The way he would have to eat his food or when it got up his nose and snort, which happened a lot. Even how he would prance around in the grass would make me smile. Even though it was harder for him or wasn’t fair he was the happiest puppy and always wanted to play.

Of course the time came when we would give all the puppies away to family and friends. I tried to convince my parents to keep him but they already promised my aunt’s friend that her family can take the puppy by the end of the week.  Even though I loved him and didn’t want to give him away I knew I had to. Since that has happened I have looked at people in my life and the trials or problems they are going through and the experiences they would have missed out if they didn’t stay positive.  Looking back on my experience I am glad I had the chance to take care and create a bond with this little puppy. What a loss it would have been if I hadn’t taken the opportunity to have this experience; I would have missed out on a life changing memory.  Through this experience I learned that life isn’t fair. It wasn’t fair for the puppy to have a cleft palate or to take a puppy away from a little girl, aka me. Everybody knows that life isn’t fair but if you look on the positive side you will be able to love, learn, labor, laugh and in the hard times lament which adds to the quality of the life we live.