Laurie Ishii

Ziggy is the cutest (in my opinion at least) dog. I can’t stop
taking pictures of him, he’s so cute and I love him so much – but I
don’t know how much longer we’ll have him. I want to keep him and I
pray that we can…

I don’t know if that’s mean but his owner moved into a place where
there are no pets allowed and he had this sweet cute doggie (Ziggy is
his name) for months, snuck him in and out of his apartment but one
day he was at work and his landlord knocked on the door and Ziggy
barked. So the landlord said that he had to get rid of Ziggie so
that’s why we have him.

Now I’m praying that I can keep him… I understand why dogs are used
to help people who are sick or invalid – dogs are used as a kind of
therapy – I see why. The last couple weeks I have been feeling so ill
physically – like I have the flu and my whole body aches – my joints
hurt so bad and it hurts even just to do things like brush my teeth,,,
but Ziggy cheers me up – even when I feel so bad I still take him for
walks even if I’m in my pajamas with a hoodie and sunglasses.

I love him so much, I take him everywhere. He even went with us on
outreach the last two weeks. I’ve snuck him on the bus, the train and
we’ve gone shopping lots of places where dogs probably aren’t allowed
but I put him in his bag and he’s so good he just sits quietly (except
a few times he has tried to get out) but as a whole he is the perfect
dog.

He sleeps in the bed with Daryl and I and he likes to cuddle and
sometimes I sleep with him like he’s a stuffed animal but he’s not but
he lets me hug him and love on him and squeeze him.

I probably sound like a freak writing about a dog but for the longest
time I have had a fear of getting a dog because when I was younger,
growing up we had a miniature schnauzer and I loved her so much and
one night my parents were at a restaurant and my little sister and I
were home alone – well Kerry Dancer (that was her name – her breeder
named her) she was allergic to bees and she got stung on her nose a
got SO SICK.

Well I found her hiding in a turned over trash can in our backyard and
she was shaking and foaming from her mouth – and the bee was dead next
to her.

My sister nd I tried and tried to reach our parents at the restaurant
and couldn’t and by the time they got home Kerry Dancer was almost
dead – she was getting stiff. They rushed her to the vet and the next
morning when we woke up we hoped to see her back at home but instead
my parents had to tell us that she died. That was the first time that
I ever saw my dad cry. We all sat there and held eachother and cried
for a long time.

I had a boyfriend at the time (I was only in Jr. high) and I remember
being so bummed that I broke up with him that day. I couldn’t do
anything without breaking into tears, didn’t want to talk to or be
around anyone.

The next dog we had was Smokey – another miniature schnauzer. He was
so sweet and we loved him so much. After a few years I started being
very rebellious and ran away from home and my parents got a divorce
while I was institutionalized for seven months.

By the time I got out my parents were completely seperated and my dad
kept the house and my mom lived somewhere else in an apartment. My dad
eventually had to sell the house and he moved to an apartment too
where he couldn’t take Smokey with him.

The man he sold the house to said that he would keep Smokey and take
care of him but instead when my dad went to see Smokey months later
Smokey was skinny and beaten and so afraid of people that he didn’t
trust anyone. My dad didn’t know what to do but finally after months
he was able to take Smokey and one of our uncles took him in.

But by this time Smokey was so traumtized it took a long time for him
to come back to himself and from what I heard he never really did. I
was out running amok, on the streets, on drugs and gang banging so I
didn’t hear any of this to way later. It broke my heart, and I wanted
to kill the man who treated Smokey like that. (I wasn’t saved then)

So anyway, since then I have had such a hard time even thinking about
getting attached to a pet for fear of losing it after loving it so
much. But I was talking a a girlfriend the other day and she was
saying that just because I have a fear like that doesn’t mean that I
should keep my love to myself and not allow myself to be vulnerable
and love someone even if it’s for a short while. I agree. It’s better
to love and to lose, than never to have loved at all…

That’s the same with relationships to people I suppose, only more
intense. I don’t know. All I know is that we are just ‘borrowing’
Ziggy – just like everything – we don’t ‘own’ anything – it’s all
God’s. So I’ll just enjoy him while I ca, and love him as much as I
have in me. If we do have to give him back – for SURE we’re going to
have to go out and buy a dog of our own. We’ve already agreed on that.

I sure didn’t mean to write all of this. But oh well. We had an
outreach last night and one woman (prostitute) prayed to receive
Jesus. I’ll write more about it later….