The Wisdom of Sophia: Part 3

We go to the building with all the animal smells this Friday. The doctor tells us if my leg has started to mend itself.   I’m afraid to go. Even though I’ve been a really good girl at my human’s office, I can’t resist running and playing with Lucy when I get home. It’s so much fun, even when my leg hurts. Impulse control has never been my strength.

I think I will need surgery to fix my leg. This scares me a lot. My human’s voice changes and gets quiet and slow when she says the word surgery. She looks like she feels sorry for me. I remember this look from my puppy days in the animal shelter. People would look at me with sad eyes and would pet me but never wanted me to be their forever friend.

I don’t like the afraid feeling, but I want to feel whole and happy again. I don’t like to take the icky pills my humans try to camouflage with peanut butter. I don’t like to let Lucy always win at rough housing. I want to play tug with my humans. I want people to look at me with happy eyes and talk to me in the excited voice.

My human said, “Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s feeling the fear and saddling up anyway. “ When I think about it, I do courage pretty well. When the annoying neighborhood dog pack comes to MY backyard and scares Lucy, I puff up my chest and growl to encourage them to back off.   When the mean man came to my human’s office, I growled and gave him my best Buddha stare until he left. Sometimes I even growl and bark at scary things I think I see (like this dog that looks just like me in the window.)

I’m still afraid, because I will have to wear this strange thing on my leg while it heals, plus that stupid cone of shame (so I don’t chew off the thing on my leg.)   I’m worried that I will hurt more after surgery. But on the wag side, I know my forever humans will always love and spoil me. I will get to sleep and snore a lot. People will be extra nice to me when they see the thing on my leg. Maybe I will even get an extra squirt of whip cream in my doggie latte or an extra slice of turkey from Subway!

Wag More, Bark Less,

Sophie