One foot in front of the other

Submitted by Foot the Dog

Hello, my name is Foot. I was saved a couple of days ago by a bunch of people who came to the place I have been living for a really long time. My friends and I all lived outside attached to chains that were always getting tangled up and caught on the poles. It was pretty cold there and we didn’t get much food. My friend had a water bowl but he couldn’t reach it. It didn't matter much because the water was frozen anyway. We were hungry, thirsty and cold. We didn’t do a whole lot out there; we thought a dog's life was a big bummer. We had no idea what was coming.

Two days ago, some big trucks came. People in orange shirts and people in red shirts and people with badges came out and started talking to us. They brought really big, scary tools with them to cut the chains off our necks and took us gently to the big trucks. They drove us to this warm building where more people looked at us from head to toe. They made everything that had been hurting us for so long stop hurting, cleaned us up and made us feel better. Then we got to go into big warm cages filled with really soft wood chips where we could snuggle up and sleep.

The best part was that we got shiny bowls with fresh, clean water in them ... and every time we took a drink, a nice person in a red shirt would come by and give us more water. It kept happening over and over! They even gave us food, and then we got to play with the food dishes. Some of my friends ate their food bowls, but I just licked mine clean without chewing it, just in case someone wanted to put more food in it.

As you can probably see from my picture, I have a hurt foot. A very nice lady with a badge has been coming to visit us for a while. She started calling me Foot and petted me a lot every time she came. I was the first one who got to see the people who made us feel better when we got to the warm place. They moved my leg around and looked at my foot a lot. It doesn’t hurt me anymore, but it used to make me cry out in pain. My bones were never broken, but I had some really bad stuff happen in the past that I don’t want to talk about yet. During that bad time, my foot got really hurt. I had to stay there, on my chain, and nobody paid any attention to me, even though it really, really hurt a lot.

I started to get used to it and eventually it stopped hurting so much. Now I walk funny, but I think it’s kind of cool. The pads on my feet have even started growing up to my ankle, so it doesn’t really hurt when I walk on it. I put my bad foot on top of my good foot when I’m sitting so my bones don’t get pressed against the hard ground. The problem is my nails get so long that sometimes they curl around and dig into the pads of my feet. Today, some nice ladies in red shirts took me to see a doctor, who looked at my foot some more. The doctor moved my foot around and then he gave me a manicure! Now my nails don’t hurt my foot anymore and I’m pretty comfortable.

I really like to go for walks with the nice people in red shirts every day. They play with all of my friends, even the ones who are scared of them. A lot of the nice people just sit with us in our little rooms with the soft wood chips and pet us. They scratch our itchy spots and tell us we’re good dogs. They also gave us toys to keep us from getting bored between meals and walks. Who knew life could be this good?