12/31/2025
She was run over and left broken, and then she was left waiting.
Months passed before surgery came. Months where pain had time to settle in, where hope was asked to hold on longer than it ever should have had to. When the surgery finally happened, it was too late to save her leg.
When she came here, her paw pads were still bright pink, untouched by grass, unfamiliar with the ground beneath them. A body paused for so long it almost forgot what joy felt like.
Almost.
Because here is the part that undoes me every time. She does not carry bitterness. She does not move through the world like something was taken from her. She runs, awkward and fearless and full hearted, as if life has only ever been kind.
She wakes up happy. She plays like nothing was lost. She loves like nothing ever tried to break her.
What she found here was not just a place to heal, but a place that did not give up on her. At Little Feet and Happy Beaks, she was met with patience instead of pressure, with love instead of limits. She was allowed to move at her own pace, to learn her body again, to trust that she was still whole.
She was not taught how to be careful. She was taught how to live.
Here, she learned how to survive with one front leg and how to thrive with all her heart. She learned that she was still allowed to run, still allowed to play, still allowed to take up space and be joyful and loud and fully herself.
This is not resilience born from denial. This is resilience born from choosing joy anyway.
She does not run because she forgot what happened to her. She runs because she refuses to let it be the end of her story.
And every time she does, she reminds me that healing does not mean getting back what you lost. Sometimes it means discovering how much life is still willing to give you, especially when you finally find the right place to land.
