It is funny how life will come at you full circle.  How it will pull you and push you through your days, through the months, through the years and then at some point you will look around and see that the journey hasn’t taken you too far, yet it has simply taught you how to get around.  When we look at it, it is almost humorous or ironic that in some cases the things we once feared would become the things that save us.  Life is a funny thing, a thing that for my young mind was about to get a whole lot more ‘ironic’.

Dogs for me have a different meaning then I think they do for most of you.  As a small child the phrase, “You are in the dog house” was more literal then it needed to be.  My step father thought of us not as children, but as toys or pets.  For my brother and I, being ‘in the dog house’, truly meant being in a dog house.  Sometimes just for a few hours and then others times it would be a resting place for our small frames.  A place to rest our heads throughout the night.

Then dogs took on a new meaning in my young life as I and the other ‘bad children’ were given the dog dishes as our serving plates.  The dogs were treated more like humans then we were. Both my step father and this new cage I was put in, saw dogs as the superior species over me.  I was placed in their beds as they enjoyed mine and was told to eat off their dishes as they enjoyed food from the tables.  Yes, dogs for me were not, “boys best friend”.  Oh how ‘ironic’ this would become.

There I was alone, trapped and afraid.  Unaware of the outside world or the battle that my grandmother was enduring.  Unaware of where I was, who I was or what I would become.  Had my time of a normal childhood run out?  Was I back in the system for good?  Was my mother coming back for me?  Where was my father, who was my father, for that matter, who was I?  These questions and many more circled my mind and kept my nights sleepless.  Fear filled my body and the only thing I could hope is that ‘mommy’ was coming back for me.  Then almost as oddly and quickly as this chapter in my life had begun, it ended.

I was returned to my grandmother’s.  No answers and no ‘mommy’.  I would not learn until many months later that my mother had requested custody of me once more, but had failed to show up to the hearing.  Months later the courts informed us that her welfare check was running low and she saw me as a way to increase her payday.  I was a pawn in the game of money.  I was not loved by a mother, yet used as a number.  The feelings that came with this, were of hate, pain, fear, worthlessness and sorrow.  My mother had shown the world and myself, that she was incapable of loving.  She had done all she could do for me and now it was up to me to do for myself.

My young life was never the same after this.  That trip to the zoo had changed me forever.  I had learned at too young of an age that life was not fare, nor were there free handouts.  In the next months I would become a terror.  My fits and my temper were untamed.  My concentration in school was almost non-existent.  I had lost the will to survive, the will to overcome.  I preferred to be lifeless and careless, then to enjoy life or care about those around me.  Fighting was about the only thing I had passion for.  Who could I pick on? What wall could I punch or what item could I destroy?  I was fearless, but was becoming feared.  My teachers worried about my progress in school.  My grandmother quickly began to lose control of me.  I had been beaten, abused, left, studied, caged and I had now drawn a line in the sand and I was not about to care about anything, but myself.

I had convinced myself that God had left, He had let me down.  I was no longer ready to believe that God could truly love me and let all of this happen to me.  Why would He allow this?  If He was God he would love me and care for me, He would not let these people do all of this to me. I didn’t feel anything.  I didn’t care to understand anything.  I didn’t want to know anyone.  All I wanted to do was nothing at all.  All I cared about was protecting me at all costs.

With my fits and tempers came more doctors and tests.  This time the doctors weren’t in white coats nor was I placed in a white room, this time they had toys and treats.  They wanted to talk to me, have me look at puzzles and maps.  Sometimes they would just watch me play with legos.  Other times they would walk me to a candy shop and ask me what I wanted.  These doctors and these tests I was happy with, but I remained quite and didn’t let anyone in.  I wasn’t about to let someone else know anything about me or how to hurt me.  This worked well until the doctors shared their results with my grandmother.

My grandmother had done all she knew how to do.  She had become frustrated with me and I had not done my part to let her in.  For her, the tests and doctors were hope, for me this was just another example of how everyone I trusted betrayed me.  So the results were shared.  I was uncontrollable and a risk to myself and others.  I suffered from stress related illnesses and my mind was unable to cope in a normal social environment.  I was for a lack of a better word, ‘a problem child’.  Recommendation?  Pills and clinical therapy.  Yes the medications or ‘candies’ were back.

This time the ‘candies’ would not go away.  My grandmother would see them as a hope to help me cope.  Her only concern would be controlling the side effects.  This would be a test all on it’s own and would lead to countless changes in medications until they found just the ‘right’ one.  The therapy consisted of weekly ‘meetings’ with doctors and scans on my head.  The meetings seemed silly to me.  I would go in, sit on the floor surrounded by toys and then I was told I couldn’t play with them until I answered a few questions.  Then some times I would be questioned with my grandmother in the room and other times I would be given cards and puzzles to solve.  All and all the doctors in these meetings seemed to do nothing for me and I did nothing for them during these sessions.

I was wallowing in self pity and self destruction.  No one understood me except one.  One friend is all I had.  Through my tempers and fits I had lost my friendship with Josh and my school mates.  I was not liked, except by one and her name was Foxy.  She had beautiful silver hair, her eyes were as black as the sky and her love was ironically just what this little boy needed.  I had found a friend, someone that would listen, someone that seemed to care about just me.  No matter how mad or how sad I was she was there for me.  She loved me like no one else seemed to.

Foxy was a pure breed Keeshond and she was my perfect dog.  My grandmother had had her for a few years before my arrival, yet I hadn’t paid much attention to her until after my zoo trip and frankly she hadn’t given me much time of day either.  That all changed, it was if she knew that she had to do her job as a dog and step up and be this boys best friend.

What can a dog do for a small boy?  Everything.  Foxy would know things that no one else would know of my childhood life.  I told her how I felt, how I hurt and how scared I truly was.  The doctors and their tests could not get me to talk.  I trusted no one, except one.  I went through the motions and had the therapy sessions, I took the pills, but I let no one in my life nor would share my life with anyone, except one.

My world had come full circle now and the one thing I hated so much as a boy was now the one thing I trusted more then any.  Ironically, I trusted—a dog.