ADOPT 2010 Contest

My name is TEDDY! I’m a 12-pound, 7 or 8 year old Pomeranian, and I’m the sweetest thing (according to my Mom, but I think she may be biased in that regard!). Just so you are not on pins and needles while reading this, my story has a very happy ending! But it didn’t start out very well for me. I have no strong recollections about much of what happened to me prior to my Mom and Dad welcoming me in to my furever home, but I know that I was in really rough shape. Somehow or another I was found wandering around alone on the Cross Bronx Expressway, which is one of the most heavily trafficked roads in the whole country! Since it isn’t possible for a pupster to access the road easily by foot (it’s an elevated highway with complicated on and off ramps and no shoulders or sidewalks) the people who found me figured I was thrown from a moving car. Or maybe I jumped. Like I said, I totally blocked it out and don’t remember a thing.

From there, the people took me to the New York City animal shelter where they discovered that I had two broken hind legs and a broken pelvis, an abscessed tooth, and was all matted and dirty. In the New York shelter system, if no one claims you within a couple of days, that’s pretty much the end of the line for you. But no one in their right mind would have claimed me or volunteered to take me in the condition I was in. You should see my “mug shots” from the shelter! Yowza! It doesn’t even look like me!

Luckily for me, a great rescue group called Posh Pets saw me there in the cage, in misery, took me away, fixed me up at the medical center with surgeries and medicines, and placed me in a temporary foster home. They put my picture up on their website for adoption, and that’s where Mom found my little face a couple of months later! When mom took me home, I still couldn’t put all my weight on my four legs, and kept one leg tucked up underneath of me, so that people thought I was a three-legged dog. I literally hopped when I walked! For a little while I lived with Grandma, she was in a wheelchair and couldn’t walk, either, but she had a ramp out to her backyard, which was easier for me to negotiate than my Mom’s apartment, which has lots of steps. But after a short while of recuperation, Mom brought me home, and here I have been ever since! Mom and Dad have both been through serious illnesses (brain tumor and cancer, respectively) so they are very understanding of my weaknesses and foibles, and love me in spite of (or maybe even because of?) my disabilities.

We have a great life – Mom and Dad work at home much of the time, so I almost always have some company in the house, and for about half the year we go up to live in a cottage on Greenwood Lake, in the woods. I love it up there! We take slow walks up and down the hills, and I get to sniff everything in creation. We never hurry! I can’t walk too fast, and neither can Mom and Dad, so it all works out perfectly! The rest of the year we live in New York City, right on the Hudson River, which I also love very much – the mist rolls in off the river, and I get to stand at the top of the cliffs and smell all the smells coming in off the water and hearing the tugboat horns. I could stand there for hours, just turning my head this way and that, nose in the air, sniffing all the scents. There are also LOTS of dogs in this neighborhood, and I have many friends – Lily, and Luna, and Barclay, and Watson, and lots of others. The neighborhood is very dog friendly, and when we visit the stores and cafes, all the shop owners know TEDDY! They say “Good afternoon, TEDDY! How are you today?” I still have a pronounced limp, and some days it is worse than others, but overall I can get around pretty well! I just can’t walk too far…

What a difference in my life from a few short years ago! Mom dotes on me, says I am the best puppy in the world, and the cutest little bear ever, and things of that nature - you know, sort of embarrassing things - but I don’t mind! I love my squeaky toys and my stuffies, and can be very fierce with them! I especially like to play tug of war, and “Monkey,” where I pretend to give my stuffie to mom, but then run away with it! I also am very talented, and can squeak my toys in time with the music! I love kids, every kind of human and all other animals, and I am overall very happy and content. I smile a lot. So, as I said at the beginning, this story has a happy ending. I am one of the lucky ones, and fortunately, we all know it - me, and Mom, and Dad - and are thankful to have found each other. Love, TEDDY!

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