Holly's Story: The Forever Home Series

The Forever Home Series:

Holly’s Story

BESSIE MAC

Copyright 2011 Beardan Publishing, LLC

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

Cover art designed by Jennifer Allen of PoleStar Grapics, LLC

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Trashed

Chapter 2 – Hospital Friends

Chapter 3 – The Big Brown Door

Chapter 4 – Doom to Zoom

Chapter 5 – My Foster Home

Chapter 6 – The Bond

Chapter 7 – The Bite

Chapter 8 – "Murder

Chapter 9 – We are Siamese, if you Please

Chapter 10 – Designer Dog

Chapter 11 – Angel Dogs

Chapter 12 – Waiting

Chapter 13 – Chosen

Chapter 14 – Goodbyes

Chapter 15 – My Forever Home

I dedicate this book to my mother, Beatrice.

Acknowledgements

The first book in my Forever Home Series: Holly’s Story, is special to me because I was able to achieve the direction I felt the Lord was leading me. For me, writing a book was not like you see in the movies – someone typing away furiously for a while, pulling the pages off the printer in a graceful flourish, and stacking them in a neat pile before handing their fresh manuscript to an enthusiastic publisher. Oh, if it were only that simple.

To portray my real life characters in a way that the reader could see their traumas and emotions as I did, meant writing, rewriting, adding, taking away, expanding, adjusting and fine-tuning. It was definitely not the idea of writing I had envisioned. Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and throughout this process there is one person who waded through my pages sorting, editing, critiquing, giving suggestions, and most of all encouraging me to continue whenever I became discouraged. There are not enough words to thank my dear friend, Tammy Souch, for helping me bring my first book to fruition.

Tammy, thank you so much for all the hard work you put into this book with me. Without your help there wouldn’t be a book. Most of all, I am so grateful for the encouragement you gave me each and every day to continue writing.

The second person I wish to thank is my daughter, Carlene, who took the time out of her already overly busy schedule to build the teacher’s lesson plan for the Bessie Mac website. With three teen age boys, a darling four year old little girl, teaching full time, and a husband who is in the air force in the Middle East serving our country at this time, I know your help was a true gift of love. Thank you, and know that I love you.

I would also like to thank Jennifer of Polestar Graphics for the wonderful cover she worked up for me, Ann and Stacy for all of their wonderful advice, and all of the friends who encouraged me to write Holly’s Story.

Last but not least, I wish to thank all of the young adults and people of different ages who read and reviewed my book – your help was greatly appreciated.

Introduction

Most of us have had a four-legged friend in our lives at one time or another. Whether they were a dog, cat, or some other type of critter, they brought joy, along with companionship, and unconditional love to us – the humans.

Throughout my life I have had mostly dogs or cats, and at the present time I have both. My life with my pets is ninety-five percent of the time very harmonious. The other five percent of discord time is usually due to human error – mine. Two of my three Miniature Schnauzers are trained service dogs who have been invaluable in helping me take care of my ninety-three year old mother for the last ten years. I frequently wonder how I managed before they came into my life.

I am abundantly blessed by my dogs’ devotion to my mother and me, and their jobs. They bring peaceful, simplistic balance to my life. It is such a joy to come home to find their adoring eyes and happy, wagging tails greeting me (that is if I didn’t take them with me as service dogs). They are secure in knowing there will be good food, exercise, regular vet visits, grooming, plenty of love, pats, kind words, toys, and treats. Therefore what I receive in return are happy, healthy dogs that bring me great pleasure.

I just naturally assumed that most pets lived the same way. It wasn’t until I started fostering Miniature Schnauzers for the Arizona Schnauzer Rescue and other rescue organizations a few years ago, that I discovered that this was not the case for far too many dogs and cats. It quickly became apparent to me that my rescue dogs had experienced unbearable, heartbreaking traumas that resulted in emotional scarring no different than if they were human.

It was a rude awakening to discover the darker side of many dogs’ lives. From my very first foster dog to the little foster dog that I have today, they have all come with varying degrees of heart-wrenching stories, ranging from sad to horrific. Behind their sad eyes are looks of help. Their tails wag – even if only just a little bit – in hope. They have no other choice but to live in the moment and trust. Day by day, little by little, their behaviors demonstrate the very traumas they were delivered from with emotions of fear, sadness, pain, shame, frustration, depression, anxiety and much more.

By my continuously speaking gentle words and showing loving kindness, the shy, cowering behaviors of abuse and neglect slowly decrease and the soft moans and sighs fade. Dogs, like humans, are emotional creatures. They feel deeply and are often put into (by no fault of their own) situations whereby they feel the same overwhelming sadness, grief, and despair that we do.

These aren’t just mere words that we use to describe our own emotions, and the emotions we see in other humans. They are the words we rarely associate with our pets and how they feel throughout their life’s journey. These words are a reality for pets. As a foster mother to rescued dogs, I have observed that each and every dog knew they had been thrown away. I soon realized that I wasn’t just giving them shelter while they waited for their forever home, but that I was helping them through a very emotional time of healing from the trauma and the rejection in their lives.

Holly’s Story is based on a real dog that I had the pleasure of being Mommy to for over six months. She came to me as a rescue in the spring of 2010. Seeing the physical and emotional anguish she went through to heal, be loved, and become a part of the pack so deeply touched my heart that it compelled me to share her story. Even though this book is known fact mixed with fiction, it could only truly be told through Holly’s eyes and voice for the reader to fully understand the humanistic emotions we share with our four-legged friends with fur.

He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.

– Unknown

Holly

Chapter 1 – Trashed (back to top)

It seemed like such fun at first, running around sniffing everything, but as the day wore on I realized something had gone terribly wrong. Unknown to me, my safe secure world had turned into every dog’s nightmare, and I found myself fighting for my very life.

My name is Holly and this is my story.

I know at one time I had a family or someone who owned and cared for me, but I can’t remember them. You see, I was in an accident, and my memory about my life before the accident is pretty fuzzy. One of my wise dog friends told me that I have something called amnesia, but I’m not quite sure what that means.

Anyway, what I do remember started about a year ago. I remember I was all by myself running around trying to find my home. For some reason, I became lost. I don’t know if the gate at my home was left open or – well – gee, I just hate the thought of the other possibilities – maybe I was abandoned, or thrown away. It was just too painful to think about.

I do remember, though, that by the end of the day I had become very frightened while trying to find my home. As I sniffed many different houses, a feeling of uneasiness started to creep up in my stomach. I felt I needed to cover ground faster than I was, so I forced my short little legs to run faster, and my nose to sniff more. There was a pounding voice in my head that kept pressing me forward, urging me to hurry and find my home. Every bone in my body told me that time was running out and I had to get home soon. But none of the houses seemed to be mine.

I approached one home after another, but none of the smells were familiar. As the day wore on the intensity of my search increased. By late afternoon, the bottoms of my feet had become sore, my legs ached, my stomach was growling, and my tongue felt dry. I tried to suppress the feeling of fear before it consumed me. I just knew I couldn’t give up; I must keep looking for my home.

I wandered around sniffing from house-to-house, street-to-street, continuing to search with a sense of urgency. As I pushed on, I came to a very busy street corner and a lot of loud, unfamiliar noises. Big cars were coming and going, whizzing around me, adding to all of the commotion. There were people everywhere. Things started to become confusing, and a feeling of apprehension spread through me. I could hear people yelling and see them running towards me. I realized they were trying to catch me. I didn’t know any of them, so when they came at me waving their arms and trying to grab me, terror rose up in my heart. It pounded in my chest, feeling like it was going a mile a minute and my head was just swirling from all the confusion.

I didn’t know what to do!

Where do I go?! I thought. I can’t let them catch me! I have to find my home! Under the threat of being caught, I was struck with an overwhelming urge to flee. Impending danger seemed to surround me. I dashed into the street to get away from my would-be captors.

But then – just as I darted out – I saw a giant car coming right at me moving ever so fast! I tried to get away from it as fast as my little feet would carry me. A horn was blowing, and people were yelling, NO, No! Look out little dog!

Suddenly, I heard the screeching of brakes. I tried to run even faster, but it seemed like I wasn’t moving at all!

Before I could think another thought, the big car was barreling down on top of me. I heard myself scream, Oh, no! and I felt a big thud and terrible pain on my back left side as I was thrown into the air, landing on the curb with an agonizing thud.

I don’t know how long I lay on the street curb, it seemed like forever, but I remember seeing a lot of people around me when I opened my eyes, and I could see funny little lights flying around above my head.

Standing by the car that hit me, a lady stood weeping, I tried to miss her, she cried. Another woman tried to comfort the crying lady. A kind, red-faced man knelt beside me, She’s coming around! Then he leaned over and smiled down at me, Don’t move little gal, don’t move. His big hand touched me gently, holding me still.

What he didn’t know was that I couldn’t have moved even if I’d wanted to, the pain was so great. My chin and lip burned; my tongue felt funny, and worst of all I couldn’t move my back left leg and foot. It felt like my foot was on fire. Pain shot up my leg to my back. I could see there was some blood on my nose and all over my leg and foot. All I could do was lay on the ground and stare at the blood that pooled beneath me. I could smell the blood, and it sent shivers of fear through me.

A lot of people were standing around looking at me, when an older lady knelt down beside me. She lifted my head gently while putting a towel under it. I could see her eyes were kind, so I tried to say thank you by wagging my tail. She smiled, It’s okay, just lie still. Help is coming. The caring tone of her voice comforted me, and I let my head fall back to the sidewalk.

I could hear a lot of words being said, some being shouted. One man was on his cell phone giving directions and looking at me with sad eyes. Another was waving cars around the big car that hit me. It all seemed so strange to me.

Other people just walked by staring at me. I wasn’t sure what I should do, so I just lay still. I no longer felt the panic that drove me to run out into the street. I did try and wag my tail now and then – just to thank everyone who stopped to help me. My head felt pretty woozy and I remember thinking that I wished I were home.

Before long, another car arrived making loud siren noises. The man who got out of the car was dressed in a policeman’s uniform, and he came over to me and knelt down. His touch was gentle and his voice was deep as he said to me, You’re going to be all right little lady, just lie still. I’ll be back. Then he spoke to the red-faced man, I’ve called animal control. Will you stay with her until they arrive?

The red-faced man calmly gave an affirmative nod. The officer turned and walked away. I wasn’t sure why he was there, and wondered if he had come to take me home. So, I just wagged my tail to let him know I heard him. He went over and talked to the crying lady and the crowd that was forming in the street. I watched him with the other people and realized that another car hit the crying lady’s car when she tried to miss me. As he wrote what they said down on paper he would occasionally steal a glance at me, his eyes filled with concern.

The nice-red-faced man sat on the curb beside me and patted my head gently as he talked to me. His touch calmed me, and I didn’t feel as scared. I was more than happy to lay still because when I tried to move, the pain was so unbearable it would take my breath away. The nice lady with the towel put a few drops of cool water on my nose. That felt so good, but my tongue seemed heavy, and it hurt too much to lick the water off.

Soon the animal control truck came and two ladies got out. They came over to where I was and knelt down beside me. One of them opened a big bag while the other lady touched me all over my body to check my injuries. It’s okay little girl, she said softly. I’m going to help you. After talking for a minute, one lady got up and left. Soon she came back with a board. Taking great care, they gently slid me onto the board with the help of the nice red-faced man. Despite their slow and careful handling, I cried out when they moved me. The movement had sent a shooting pain from my foot up to