Freefall

How do you take what should be a happy time and make it ‘suck’ a little? Take that happiness and have it overshadowed by the need to prove a point.

Every human knows the feeling of needing to prove the naysayers wrong. Every person with a disability has this feeling on any new adventure we embark on.

A few weeks ago, I got myself a puppy named Alchemy. I already own a cat, but I grew up with dogs and, what can I say, I saw that little face and fell hard.

Love is all around … that was until one of my carers made the comment that I shouldn’t have a dog because, ‘I wouldn’t be able to look after it’.

A friend then told me that another of her friends had made a similar remark.

Bring on the judgement. Bring on the resentment. Bring on the urge to totally kick butt and erase these people from my life.

They might have had a point if I had not:

• taken her to the vet within two days to make sure that she was okay. She’s already booked for her next vaccination
• bought her a pen to stay in while I am at work – she is too young to go outside – as well as bedding, toys, and an automatic water and food dispenser which holds enough for a whole week, so that she never runs out
• she is not even 10 weeks old yet, and only makes one toilet training mistake a day – funnily enough, usually in my bathroom.

Why is it so often the case that, because we may need to do somethings a different way, some people assume that we can’t do it at all? It smarts a little. I feel like I’m being watched and that every tiny mistake is being written in some big book of ‘I told you so’. It seems my furry friend has become my latest disability advocate. That saddens me, because she wasn’t ever meant to be that at all. I get tired of needing to do things in a way that others view as ‘the right way’ just to prove myself.

Let me assure you that my pup is being well looked after. She is warm, healthy and happy. When she is 12 weeks old, I’m taking her to puppy school where she will learn to defend me against those that say hurtful, and more importantly untrue, things.

She is my little piece of magic and perhaps my ‘ally detector’ as well.