New addition to the family, another rule broken.

When I was born my mum and dad had a dog called Purdie, she was an German Shepard, Rottweiler and Border Collie cross. She was gorgeous and loving and my best friend and I grew up loving her to bits. For some reason my mum and dad didn't ever get her jabs done or get her spayed. When I was about 8 I was playing in the garden on my swing as usual and I accidently swung forward not knowing she was walking in front of me, I couldn't stop and I kicked her in the side, she cried and whimpered and limped for ages and I tried to make her feel better by hugging her and talking to her, apologizing over and over again while mum and dad just carried on doing what they were doing.

We went on holiday about a week after and we left Purdie with my grandparents as usual. Part way through the holiday we got a phone call to say that she was poorly and wasn't eating and crying lots.
I asked my dad if we could go home, I wanted to see her just in case she died and I'd never get to see her again but dad said no, it was a waste of money to go home when we had two days left. I was taught that wasting money is a major NO so I shut up and cried silently in bed at night instead. There had been no change and my grandparents hadn't bothered to take her to the vets. When we got home, my dad took her the day after and I wasn't sure I would see her again. An hour later though he brought her back, she was given tablets to take and he told mum that she had a womb infection (from not having puppies or not being spayed) but I remembered that I had kicked her in the side not more than a week before it started and I was convinced I had done it and I knew no different. She continued to not eat and my mum and dad for some reason only gave her the tablets in food instead of making her take them anyway, so she missed doses and she got worse over two days until she couldn't stand up. I watched it all unable to do anything about it except cry and cuddle her, hold her and reassure her that she would be okay.

Dad got home from work and mum told him how she was and he decided to take her back to the vets. She couldn't walk, her legs just kept giving out under her so dad had to pick her up and carry her. He lay her down on the back seat and she just curled up. I kissed her fur and cried. Mum wouldn't let me go with them. I sat in the kitchen window for hours just watching and crying, waiting for them to come home. The car drew up outside and I waited, but only dad got out the car and I just wanted to be hugged by my mum and cry but she only offered a small amount of love, more than usual though. Dad as usual didn't express emotion at all as he told us how she'd died on the way there with dad's hand on her head while he drove along, going as fast as he could.

I can't believe how much this hurts to think about and how long I've tried not to think about it.

I was depressed and upset for weeks, I would cry a lot and sometimes even months later would burst into tears, missing her. I remember one night, the only hug I ever remember from my dad, when I started crying about her death and both he and mum promised me that we could get a new dog, that I would get a new friend.

The months passed into years and I began to get a grudge against my parents for doing what I considered one of the worst things ever, to break a promise.

I blamed myself for Purdie dying though and although I wanted another dog, I never believed that I deserved one, after all if I did then my parents would have gotten another one.

So to this day even though I've been moved out of my mum's house for nearly 7 years I have never gotten another dog.

After throwing away some of the crap from my mum and J in my mind, I almost feel like there is enough room to maneuver now, to allow myself to finally believe I didn't kill our dog, it was my mum and dad that failed to get her spayed and failed to get her better and my grandparents for not getting her to the vets quick enough. I was a child, a child that was led to believe I didn't deserve another dog, had promises broken and never had my worries about being a murderer eased.

I am not that child any more though, I am an adult and it's time I got myself the one thing I have always wanted, always missed.

So today after talking idly about it with T for a while and knowing just how much he loves dogs and has always wanted one since his last one died, I decided to get him one for Yule. However I knew I couldn't keep it a secret because he needed to help me choose because the dog would be for all of us, another member of the family and price and breed etc would need to be explored and thought about.

I never thought when I got up this morning that I would be looking for a puppy this day. Despite my anxiety about telling him the idea, he loved it and at once started looking with me. We looked at lots of different ones and whittled it down to a few breeds and crossbreeds we liked best. Then we looked at distance and prices and what each of the breeds would offer. We kept coming back to the same puppy, a slightly older one and not a breed that we were really looking for; a Rottweiler with a little Staffie in him. He looked gorgeous in the pictures and he had the same colouring that Purdie had which really endeared me to him. He was more expensive than we really wanted to pay though so we looked at others. However no matter what breeds or keywords we searched for, he kept popping up on all the sites over and over again. In the end we fell for him hard and T text the number to see if he was still for sale. Sure enough although we doubted he would be, the owners called back not 5 mins later and T arranged to go see him this evening. I put an excited Angel to bed then T called me to say that he's ours, we're going to pick him up tomorrow night. T is so excited and I'm so excited I can't sleep or eat! I feel worse than a child at Christmas! I'm incredibly glad that after such a shitty and hard weekend I can make T so happy, that we've pulled back together as a family and we now have a new edition and T has a few days off for us to have lots of family time with all of our animals and with each other.

My goal for tomorrow is to get out of the house with Angel and get into town to get the things Bently will need for his new home with us.  T is going into work very early in the morning and is going to be working over an hour away again until nearly Angel's bedtime again, so if I don't go and get the things then we won't have them for him. I already have the bags ready so my plan is to get up, take some lorazapam right away then start puppy proofing the house while I wait for it to work and we have breakfast and things then get myself together and go out mid morning or at least after the schools have gone in.

I almost feel like I'm mentally slapping my mum in the face with this, but more importantly I don't care what she thinks about us getting a dog, screw her, this is my life.