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Sugar Baby: the Runt of the Litter

This is the story of how I got my first dog. Hope you enjoy!

Her mother was a Golden retriever and her father was a Labrador.
She came from a litter of 10 - five boys, five girls. She was the smallest, the runt of the litter. She and her brother and sisters were put in a box, taken to the Food Lion parking lot and left there. She was being tumbled on and squished by her bigger siblings. My grandmother had gone shopping and saw them in the box. She went to have a look at them, and picked the female runt out for me, and the largest female for herself. My grandmother took them to her house and named the runt Sugar Baby and the large pup Honey Love. She took care of them and got their shots and gave me Sugar. Sugar lived with me for 3 years, until she was so big, I did not have anymore room in my house. She went back to live at my grandmother's. I help with buying Sugar's food and treats. Over the years, my grandmother has saved many other dogs from death until she could not take care of all of them PLUS Honey and Sugar. She found a home for 3 of the 4 dogs she saved. She couldn't let the walker hound she saved go, so she chose to find Honey a home. She did not want to, but Honey was getting very aggressive to Sugar and the other dogs. Honey found a home with some friends that brought her every year to see us, until my grandmother told them to cut back on Honey's food because she was 6+ pounds over-weight. They got mad, and we never saw Honey Love again. Sugar Baby was now 7 years old. I decided to try to start bringing Sugar back to my house. I kept her outside during the day and she came in at night. I did this for 1 year, until it became too much to handle during the summer months when I needed to go outside every hour to fill up her water bucket with fresh water. She was driven back to my grandmother's. Sugar was also kept out ide there, but she was in the shade with fans blowing on her and a cold concrete kennel to lay on, plus 5 water buckets, so she was in a sort of tropical paradise.
My grandmother and I always went to Myrtle beach, SC every year. We decided to take Sugar. But 3 weeks before we were to leave, Sugar was attacked by a dog. The dog put 4 1-inch holes in Sugar's rear end. Sugar had to have surgery at the vet to close the holes and had a drain put in, but it only made things worse. We had to keep a cone on her to keep her from pulling out the drain. We had to take it of to let her eat and drink water until it became so much trouble that we just left off full time and just kept a close eye on Sugar. We made the beach trip and Sugar had fun. She got very spoiled and loved on by everyone who saw her. They said 'oh,what a pitiful girl" or "you poor thing".
Once Sugar was healed, my family put our house up for sale. It was sold while we were in TN on vacation, and when we got back we had to live in our camper for three months until we found a house. We did and got moved in and settled in November 2009. Sugar was 9 years old now. In January 2010, I decided to take her to our new home. It was a lot larger and she enjoyed it. Every thing went well until April 2010. We left Sugar outside while we ate lunch inside.When we went back out after lunch, Sugar's shoulder was swollen to the size of a small watermelon. She was bleeding too. I looked at her shoulder and pushed her hair back and the were two holes from were a snake's fangs had gone through. My dear darling doggie had been bitten by a snake! I got some scissors and a phone and called my grandmother. As I was cutting the hair from around the wound, my grandmother was rushing to my house to drive Sugar and me to the vet.We got there and the vet gave Sugar an anti-venom shot and gave us some antibiotics for Sugar and said if any thing went wrong to bring Sugar back in and they would keep her for a few days.
Thankfully, Sugar healed without complications and she's now a happy 9 1/2 years old dog.
My girl will soon be 10, on August 17 2010.

Sugar has gone from a roaming trouble-maker to a sophisticated lady in too short a time. It seems like it was just yesterday when I was chasing that girl around my neighborhood, and now she can't even get up without her bones popping. I will treasure the rest of her days with me, and I will always love my Sweet Sugar Baby.
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