It has been said that the “puppy stage” is the best part of a dog’s life. So far it’s been the worst part of my life. I hope my luck will change soon.
I was born in a litter of 8 puppies, only half of us survived. We were born outside in an alley in New York City. My mother was very protective over us. We could not go more than a few feet away from her without her getting paranoid and growling at us to come back. As I matured I became very curious. One day I decided to leave because I wanted to go and see the outside world. From that point on I never looked back. It wasn’t a very good decision. My life had almost turned for the worse.

My first owner was very mean and abusive. He had found me one day walking outside in front of his house. He was a different kind of person, he didn’t have much money or food for that matter. I’m surprised he even had a house. I thought to myself, why I should have to be with this kind of man. Then I decided to leave and find a new home again and that’s what I did. I began roaming the streets looking for a place to go. My conscience was saying any place was better than the place I was in. One day a man pulled up next to me in a fancy new car, picked me up, and put me in the car as if he was abducting me. He looked like a really nice guy. He was all dressed up and looked like he had an abundance of money. We stopped at a pet store and he bought plenty of things for me. As we pulled on to his block all I could see was his house from a far distance. It wasn’t a house, it was a mansion.

When we went into his house it seemed like life would be perfect here. I was wrong. We started walking down stairs in to a basement. It was very dark. Then we moved further in and he hit a switch. When he hit the switch the whole basement was illuminated. There were cages all around with dogs in them. In the middle was a huge ring with seats all around them and he said, “This is your new home now.” He picked me up and put me in one of the empty cages. As he put me in I began to feel really tired and ended up falling asleep. The next morning I woke to yelling, screaming men and women. My eyes opened and it was very bright. I could see two dogs growling at each other in the ring. The next thing I knew they were fighting like there was no tomorrow. They were basically fighting for there lives. Some weird guy came up to my cage and said, “You better get ready your next.” I began to cry. Five minutes later my cage was opened and I was put into the ring. I was sitting waiting to see who I was up against. My eyes widened as I saw them pick the dog. It was a 7 month old pit-bull that looked like it was 7 years old. The bell went off and the pit-bull started charging at me. Of course I moved out of the way and he slammed into the side of the ring. The next thing I know I leaped on top of him and started biting him. They pulled me off him and said I won. I don’t know what came over me to do that. Something like that has never happened to me before, I guess it was the fact that I had to protect myself. Soon there was going to be another fight between me and a very big dog. When the guy went to pick me up and put in the ring I tried to bite him so I couldn’t be put in. That didn’t work. Now I was sitting in the ring waiting for the other dog. I see another guy bringing over a dog but I could not see the dog because it was a cage with a blanket over it. He put the cage in the ring, took the blanket off. Staring me down was huge a rottweiler. This dog was four times the size of me. I thought to myself “why would they put this dog up against me.” As soon as they rang the bell the dog was right top of me hitting and biting every part of my body. My life had started to flash right before my eyes Thoughts were going through my head saying I might die right here and right now. How could this happen to me, a little innocent homeless dog? The bell had rang again to end the match. When they pulled the rottweiler off of me I realized that I couldn’t move my right front paw. When I tried to get up I just kept falling. Finally I was picked up and thrown into my cage. My body was hurting all over. The pain was so unbearable I passed out. When I had woke up there were cops all over the house, taking the dogs out and the guys that were running the dog fight were all on the ground in handcuffs. I was ecstatic. When one of the cops saw me they took me right out of the house and ran me to the vet. I think it was called the North Shore Animal League. They fixed all my wounds and put a cast my right front paw. I was smiling when I got there because I knew I would be safe there.

I plan on being in a great home with great people. But so far my luck has not been that great. Nobody has shown any interest in me. They keep looking at other dogs and adopting them. The people there had told me that hopefully soon somebody would come, adopt me and I would be put in a very good and happy home. I hope they are right because I want to start my life over with a great family.
- Ricky VanAllen

This entry was posted on Friday, January 2nd, 2009 at 7:27 am and is filed under Student's Corner. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.