Please take a few minutes to read this heartfelt, amazing story from Edwina, one of our senior ACN Team captains. Edwina adopted this blind dog Magoo from one of our rescue partners, the Michigan Animal Rescue League.
It is definitely worth reading. Enjoy!
Dear Goo,
It is December 9th. If we understand the papers right, this is the day someone admitted you into the shelter. It is 31 degrees and overcast today where they found you. Ice pellets are forecasted for tonight. Your dad and I have reviewed and pondered all the scenarios as to how you had come to be a stray. In the end we always come back to the word abandoned. Even if they lost you, how is it they did not find you at the shelter? But then, we wonder how it is you made it two years without good care. When the shelter took you in, you were super thin, dull coat, intact, heartworm positive, cut so badly it looked like you had been attacked and then also completely blind. Not even a token of light sensitivity. Your name is not really Gooey but Magoo because you are blind. But you are so affectionate you stick to people like Goo. Or Velcro or any quality adhesive. This is all good you understand. You are without a doubt the most affectionate animal we have ever met.
We were worried a bit about adopting you, our house has stairs and we both work full time. After our first visit, I told the lady at the adoption shelter, “If retired people with a ranch want him, they should have him.” But in realty within the scope of one week you went from being a: big, black blind dog on a video to “our boy” who we wanted home as soon as possible.
The transformation was incredible. We have what most people think of as a nice yard for the modest Mid-west. We had vintage fencing shipped in from Texas. A welder in Illinois custom made all the gates. Days in June stunning Japanese irises bloom. But oddly enough after you came it was clear most of that meant close to nothing. What mattered was that it was your yard. Your space you were in it and it was your safe space to be in. “Yours” was vastly more powerful of a sentiment than “ours”. You go out there and just lay in the green grass. Or toss your purple ball around. You in that yard is a magnificent thing to see. Your friend Tim next door has compared you to both a thoroughbred horse and a panther that is just how stunning you are when in your yard.
At first I never let you be in the yard without either me or your dad with you. We never wanted you to feel alone ever again. Never again abandoned. But then we soon came to realize that we did not have to work very hard because you had a Labrador sister as well as a back yard. And somehow, in some unknown language, you knew she was there for you. From the very first day on the kitchen floor you, without site, would always be laying down parallel to her or in mirror image. Always close. People seem to think that sighted dogs help the blind. I do not know if Lya your lab sister really intended to help at first. But you can hear here when on walks and you keep pace with her and somehow you learned the ropes Lya style even without sight. She gets pretty mad if you accidently step on her but it is clear that she likes you and you have bonded with her. You are rarely far from her.
This morning you did not want to go outside because it was chilly. Today you are a member of a neighborhood complete with people who love you, a veterinarian who looks over you, a yard of your own and above all else a sister to be there. One year ago someone brought you to shelter, one member of the vast army of people who rescue animals. Members of this army transported you over seven counties and spent hours and hours taking care of you and helping you until you could get home. We are grateful to each and every one of them and wish every one of them could see you now as you glisten in the sun or swim in a great lake or bark with happiness when you meet your friend Bub on the street. I think they would be pleased.
