Riley's Story

As I type my blog posts, I have a furry editor in chief that lays next to me. Without fail, she is always by my side, watching the neighborhood or peacefully sleeping.

This little being is our Australian Cattle dog – Blue Heeler, Riley. I was walking Riley the other day and started contemplating all of the life lessons she has taught me and my family since she entered into our lives on March 11th, 2016.

Trevor and I grew up with dogs and discussed getting a dog together when the time was right. Trevor and I are the type of people when we get an idea in our heads and it is sitting on our hearts, we do everything in our power to make it happen fast. We started looking online at local humane societies for dogs that fit the temperament we were looking for – friendly, loving, kid friendly (even though we didn’t have kids at this point), playful, and a dog that needed a loving home.

We found several dogs that fit these specifications, but we still lived in an apartment with a forty pound weight restriction for dogs, so it limited our search a little bit more.

On Friday night, Trevor and I were looking at all of the humane societies within comfortable driving distance and saw there were puppies at one. We started getting attached to these cute puppies. The very next morning, we drove over an hour to the humane society to try and adopt our little furry bundle of joy.

When we got to the shelter, all of the puppies were adopted. We were bummed, but excited that these lucky pups found their forever homes so quickly.

Trevor and I filled out an application and were pre-approved at the shelter in case we found another dog that we wanted to place on hold to adopt so they wouldn’t slip away from us.

The next week on Thursday, I was looking, okay stalking, the shelters website when a new photo of a black and white little dog appeared. The dogs name was Princess, which is pretty funny (now that hindsight is 20-20 and we have this dog in our family). I called the humane society and asked about this adorable dog and how to place her on hold while Trevor and I traveled to meet her tomorrow.

Trevor and I took off of work Friday afternoon to meet this speckled dog. We were both sitting on the floor in the meet and greet room when this masked cattle dog came walking in.

She instantly came to us, tail wagging, and tongue licking us a million miles a minute. She was extremely friendly, and she was very thin. We asked if we could see her play with toys, which she showed absolutely no interest in. When we got her into a larger room, she paced and tried to find windows to look outside. We could tell she was nervous, but who wouldn’t be in a strange place such as this.

When we asked more about her story – She just arrived from Mississippi and clearly had puppies. She was two years old and very loving towards humans.

After hearing her story, my heart was set.

I told Trevor I wanted to adopt her and didn’t want to leave the shelter without our girl.

We walked her outside and Trevor caved in and allowed us to adopt her. I would later find out he wanted to leave the shelter and take some time to think about adopting her, but he knew my mind was made and I wanted her – I know, he’s an amazing husband.

We would bring “Princess” home and on the drive Trevor and I tried out different names. She does not look like a Princess (nor act like one) so we knew we needed to change it. She also didn’t respond to the name, so we knew it was one the shelter assigned her. We would try calling her different names – Lucy, Sadie, Bella, Sophie. We got to Riley and her ears perked up and she picked up her head. Trevor and I both agreed, this was Riley.

We would spend the entire weekend with our new Riley girl and she was perfect. She made herself right at home jumping on our sofa and bed, sleeping at Trevor’s feet, and not barking.

We left her home alone when we attended a concert and she didn’t do anything while we were gone.

We felt as though we hit the adopted dog jack pot as she didn’t have a visible flaw.

Well, Monday would roll around and Trevor and I would go to work. We came home over our lunch break to check on her and walk her. She was still the perfect little angel when we left her. Trevor had to work late and I came home alone after work.

I walked into the apartment and was shocked to find Riley had made her way onto our kitchen counters and ate a bunch of chocolate we had sitting out – I know, bad dog parents leaving chocolate out, but she showed no interest when we were gone previously and she stands at a foot tall. I frantically called Trevor, balling my eyes out as chocolate is really bad for dogs and I felt horrible for not putting it away. Trevor calmly asked me to call the vet and get their suggestions.

Here I am, newly adopted dog mom, crying to a vet tech about how our dog ate chocolate. She was acting completely normal, but they gave me clear instructions to give her hydrogen peroxide to get her to throw it up. It didn’t work.

I had no idea when she ate this chocolate, for all we knew she ate it as soon as we left in the afternoon.

The next day we would leave for work and come home to find our counters were cleared off – we were smarter and removed all food items so she wouldn’t get into trouble.

If you look at Riley, she is not tall. I would call her a medium sized dog, but she’s crazy athletic, which she didn’t show us until we were gone.

Trevor and I would go to Petsmart and get a kennel for Riley. We left for work and came home again over our lunch break to find Riley had escaped her kennel somehow. We looked at the kennel and the door was locked and the kennel was still intact. We adopted Houdini – an escape artist.

We would continue to put Riley in the kennel and she would escape time after time without fail. We were also informed by our landlord she was barking. We didn’t believe him at first because we have never heard her bark. She didn’t make a peep when we were around.

So, Trevor would secure every corner and we purchased an app for our iPad to watch Riley when we left for the day to see and hear if she was barking.

As we were in the car driving away, we turned on the dog monitor app and saw Riley barking, body slamming the kennel and almost knocking it on its side trying to escape.

Riley had severe separation anxiety.

We had a friend borrow us a collar that would spray citronella when Riley barked. We watched Riley on the dog monitor getting sprayed in the face repeatedly not understanding the collar was noise activated. We came home to an empty collar, an escaped smiling dog.

Trevor and I didn’t know what to do. We contemplated taking her back to the shelter as we felt we were not the best suited family for her in the apartment and our neighbors were noting they were hearing her all throughout the day. Trevor and I were crying hysterically when we were talking to his parents – you better bet we still talk to our parents and get their advice.

Trevor’s parents offered to take her for a little bit and work on kenneling her. They live in a home with no neighbors in ear shot – so it was perfect.

They would take Riley until we were able to purchase our first home in December 2016.

If you have followed my story – December 1st, 2016 is when my symptoms in relation with Multiple Sclerosis began. Trevor and I were newly married, bought our first home, got our dog back, and I would be home for several months coping with symptoms.

Riley throughout my entire time home never left my side. She would follow me around the house, be at my heels with every step, and sleep glued to my side when I would nap after treatment.

She knew something was wrong. I strongly believe dogs have a special way of sensing when something is wrong.

In February 2017 when I fainted after administering an injection medication for my MS. Trevor literally caught me before I fell and Riley was licking my face as I came back to consciousness.

She was meant to be with us. She put us through the ringer when we first adopted her, but her life was just flipped a million times over when we adopted her.

She was taken from her home state of Mississippi, her puppies were taken from her, she was put in surgery to spay her, placed in a shelter, we met her, adopted her, and brought her to an unfamiliar space. She had no consistency.

Riley is not a perfect dog – but she is perfect for us. She still suffers from separation anxiety and wears a thunder vest when we leave the house. She is hesitant to meet other new people and dogs initially. She gets intimidated when someone she doesn’t know looks her in the eyes. But Riley is our girl.

We do not know specifics about her past – she could have been a street dog or a puppy mill mom. She didn’t have a family to love her until we came along, and that is why we found her – To love her and show her the depth of the human spirit.

In spite of her flaws and imperfections, Riley is still very deserving of a good life and lots of love. Riley is part of our family and she has given us so much joy, laughter, and happiness that we cannot image our family without her.

She is just like us humans. We all come to relationships and situations with baggage from our past, we all have triggers that set us off, we have insecurities, but that does not make us bad or damaged people (or dogs). It makes us real, feeling souls. With time and a lot of love, we have been able to learn and adapt to Riley, and she has forever imprinted the true meaning of life on our hearts – love.

Thank you so much for reading Riley’s story. If you enjoy these blog posts, please subscribe by entering your email at the side or bottom of this page. I would love to deliver these posts to your inbox. TANCKS for reading!