Harvey

Chapter One

Harvey

Harvey started it all.  In Vet Tech school, we have different animals arrive from a local shelter every week for physical exams and vaccinations.  My second week in Intro to Vet Tech, a little dog arrived, named Koi.  He was marked as a ‘shih-tzu’.  One look was all it took to know he had no shih-tzu in him, and was at least, in part, Pekingese.  Being a sucker for the pekingese breed, I immediately called my better half and asked him for permission to bring Koi home.  Since Chad is as enamored as I am, he said it sounded like he needed to live with us.  

Koi had no personality at all.   I think he was beaten down from being lost and trapped by animal control.  He wasn’t enthused by any of us.  I went and paid my fee to the shelter, made arrangements for his neuter and was told to pick him up on Friday evening.  

I knew he would be groggy from the surgery, so I left him alone Friday night.  Saturday morning, he was still uninterested in us or the other dogs.  By Sunday, it was apparent he was in the throes of a bad bladder infection, and I called my instructors at school, who had me bring him in Monday morning for an evaluation.  He hadn’t been eating much, and I had tried to entice him with everything from canned food to hamburger.  The doctor put him on antibiotics and pepcid for his stomach upset.  We renamed him Harvey 

It was apparent after a couple of days that Harvey was bonding with me.  He cried when I got home, offering me his favorite toys and following me from room to room.  It was at this point that I realized he had gone from having no personality to having a HUGE personality.  There was no denying, he had stolen my heart and that it was reciprocated tenfold.  

Harvey never had a wonderful appetite.  I finally gave up and just put him on canned food as it was easier than convincing him to try to eat dry.  His teeth were a mess, so I made arrangements to take him to my veterinarian for a cleaning.  My doctor took one look at him and said we wouldn’t be doing a cleaning, his teeth were so bad, and his roots so rotten that he had sustained a break to his jaw.  I felt my heart sink.  Here this poor little dog had been living with a broken jaw for who knows how long, eating just enough to keep him alive.  We put him on antibiotics and scheduled surgery to wire his bone back together.  My doctor also gave him pain killers to make him feel better.  

With the cleaning, surgery and pain meds, a new Harvey emerged.  He became more demanding of my time, attention and lap.  He had a toy in his mouth all the time.  He ran and played, his beautiful plume of a tail always up and wagging, and what I thought could never happen, happened.  I loved him even more.  He blossomed under the care and affection, always good natured and happy, he became my little ambassador.  Tolerant of everyone, welcoming of all, but always reserving that full love and attention for me.  Regal and proud, he has become my little shadow.  A little castaway that was thrown out and not retrieved, he has somehow found his way to the place he was always meant to be.....by my side.