MY RESCUE

I have a silver female Yorkie rescued from a puppy mill. A puppy mill, if you don't know, is exactly as it sounds, a place where dogs are bred, repeatedly, and the puppies are sold to stores, like the ones you find at the mall. The parent dogs are kept in wire cages, with wire bottoms, stacked one on top of the other, several dogs to a cage, kept outside in the weather, very little water and food provided, and absolutely no love and care. This is just a bit of information, the ugly truth can be read about at http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/puppy_mills/.

This Yorkie of mine has been with me for a little over a year. She was emaciated, shaven to the skin to remove her matted hair, had an ear infection, a open wound in her cheek, and, among other things, suffered severe psychological trauma from the abuse she had received. She has come a long way with my family's patience and love. I have to say though that I have received the most reward from her than anyone on earth could provide. You see, she has saved me, my life, many times, for she is what some would consider a "medical dog."

I have Type 1 Diabetes and am insulin-dependent. I have a continuous glucose monitor that I wear always and it has an alarm to alert me to severe low blood sugars. Unfortunately for me, sometimes while sleeping I don't hear the alarm. But,...my rescue Yorkie does. She runs into the hallway and barks loudly and non-stop, runs back and forth from the bed to the hall until she awakens me and I walk to the kitchen to check my blood sugar. She is so excited and happy that I am up, then she sits on the kitchen rug until all is fine and we go back to bed together. The first time this happened, my alarm went off, unbeknownst to me, and I awoke to her screaming bark, I got up thinking she needed to go outside to potty. Walking downstairs to take her out, I wondered why I felt so disoriented and drunk, I checked my blood sugar and my glucose read 40....very, very low for someone with injected insulin. I had no idea whatsoever that I was in trouble and probably would not have awakened, instead I most likely would have slipped into a coma. This gorgeous little girl saved my life. She came and comes to my rescue. I saved her from being killed when the puppy mill could no longer make her breed at the young age of 4. She now saves my life sometimes twice a week. I feel so lucky with this angel caring for me. I am so blessed, so grateful, so rescued!