She sleeps

She is laying horizontal in the middle of the bed, head under the pillow, snoring into my ear. She is sleeping so heavily that her body is doing that weird muscle twitchy thing that seems as if she is doing pop n’ lock in her dreams. She will barely stir when I scratch her ears and nuzzle her snout. This girl sleeps like a log but she deserves it. She’s been through a lot in her short 9ish/10ish months. It’s not enough that she was born a pitbull, her reputation preceding her before she could even open her eyes. Bully breed, dangerous, vicious. Yet I found her, on the side of my neighborhood street, with a horrifically mangled and bloody leg. When I called to her and before I even saw the damage, she was full of love. Hopeful and sweet despite the obvious neglect she had somehow escaped. Mangled leg that needed amputation, malnourished and underweight, tail broken in three places, parasites and worms just to name a few. She fought her way out and we would now not give up on her. She got a second chance with one less leg but only as a technicality. You would never know it when she is zooming around the backyard chasing her sister or nudging toilet paper off the dispenser to then teepee the bedroom. She gets a chance to be in her terrible twos and many years after that because she had a will to live that was undeniable. As I massage her tired muscles and graze over the nub where there should be a leg my throat catches a bit. It’s not fair, little girl, and I’m so sorry you had to go through what you went through and that sometimes people are jerks. But I am so very happy that we get to love you now and you can sleep horizontally in the bed, under the pillow and snore in my ear for the rest of your days.