How Abby lost a leg, but gained a life and made ours better

I’m thinking about a teenager who I’ve never met.  I don’t know anything about them other than the fact that they were almost hit by a car about 12 years ago.  Were it not for a flat coat retriever and her love of children that car would’ve hit that child.  It’s a dog story so unbelievable I wouldn’t give it a second glance, had we not lived with the dog for 12 years.

For me, it started at a pub crawl that some friends and I had organized to raise money for an animal charity.  There was a shy, black, three legged dog from the rescue group who was keeping to herself under a table.  I was looking for an older dog to keep Wilson, our golden retriever company and this pretty dog fit the bill.

The volunteer told me that Abby was a hero dog who ran into the path of a car to stop it from hitting a young boy.  And the car that you’re selling is only driven on Sunday and that swamp land in Florida is buildable, I get it.  Relax lady, there’s a bond here with this dog and me, I’ll adopt her next week.  In my mind I was certain that her next story had the dog being some rescue critter from a hurricane zone or something else to make the dog stand out.

I figured that Abby was a nice bookend to our canines that would allow me to be the chick magnet that I was destined to become.  Nothing says “Available catch of a guy” like a semi-employed guy who cleans his fixer upper house with a leaf blower and has 2 cats and 2 dogs, does it? While that house didn’t turn into my own personal Melrose Place, it was good enough to help me land the catch that is the mother of our children, but, back to the dogs.

It was during this period that Abby lunged at a German Shepherd who was trying to attack us, caught a couple squirrels who were trying to invade the yard and loved rolling around in dirt or anything that could make her smelly.

The dogs and I went about our way; going to dog parks and doing the things that singletons do with their best friends. Enter the girlfriend (for the second time), because that’s the way some of the great relationships evolve.  They take a break, like Rachel & Ross, they take a break and then get back together.

It turns out that that her brother-in-law wanted to adopt a dog for his growing family.   He had just spoken to a foster parent about a dog that he was thinking about adopting.  While there making small talk the foster parent proceeded to tell him about one of her previous foster dogs, a black three-legged retriever that saved the life of a little boy.

Either the foster parent had a limited number of stories or this was the real deal.  A hero dog that runs into traffic just to push a little boy out of the way of an oncoming car, I guess that it was possible.  It was that accident that took her leg.  Knowing that she was mortally injured she scampered into the wood to die.

A rescue organization found her, paid for the amputation, put her in a foster home, where they crossed paths with me and I saw her under the table while I was drinking beer.

Fast forward a couple of years and Abby was content.  She liked being with me but was lukewarm to my wife when we first got married.  “Don’t you realize that whenever I try to speak Abby starts barking”, my wife said.  I didn’t realize that and for the record I did not train her to do that.

However once Jenny got pregnant Abby turned into that dog that ran into traffic.  She was by my wife’s side all the time, super protective, loving and just wanted to please her.  Then the kids came.  Abby was a dog that needed and craved children.

Wherever the kids were Abby was.  She would run in the back yard with them, chase balls, play with the rope and do anything that the kids were doing.

In the end her age, shifting bones and level of discomfort got the best of her.

When she died I thought of how our two boys would take the news.  They were OK with it, immediately asking about Wilson, his health and when we could get another dog.   For the record, he’s fine-just old and no, not for a while.

My next thoughts were about the teenage kid who might be in college, working somewhere, in the military or learning a trade.  It was the too-good-to-be true story about a dog that runs into the path of a car to take the brunt of its impact.  It’s a story that I wouldn’t have believed had I not seen the character of the dog first hand for the past 12 years.