jack the tzu makes miraculous recovery

I have a Shih Tzu dog, Jack, who has gone thru an ordeal that shows how important family and friends and love are.  We have three children, two boys and a girl.  Our daughter was bullied in school and was going through very serious emotional trauma due to the way the bullying issue was dealt with by the school.

During Spring Break she got worse to where she was having serious night terror.  We had gone to Grandma and Grandpa’s for a visit and Grandma had asked me to take her to this place to look at Shih Tzu puppies.  We found the perfect puppy for her and when we got back to Grandmas house we could see how our daughter just clung to this little puppy.  My husband and I thought maybe this will be the answer we are looking for to help her emotional state and to get her mind off of the horrible happenings before Spring Break.

So on the way home we stopped in to see if they had any puppies left. They had a few but there was one puppy that stood out for us. He was the biggest and meanest of the litter and no one wanted him.  So we figured he needs us as much as our daughter needed him.  This was so true, her night terrors started to fade away until there were no more.  When school started we got to the bottom of the bullying issue and that stopped as well.

When we moved to the country in Armstrong, our little Shih Tzu, Jack, was mauled almost to death by the neighbor dogs.  When I got him to the vet he was barely alive.  The veterinarian didn’t give us a lot of hope as he was torn up so badly, but we told him he had to try since he was part of our family and we needed him home with us.  So after hours of surgeries our little Jack was still hanging in there, but only by a thread.  The vet said that he would know more in the morning if he made it through the night.

The next day my daughter’s volleyball team had a car wash using the vet’s parking lot.  As one of the girl’s dad owned the clinic the girls had access to the washroom which was just outside the room where Jack was fighting for his life.  Every time one of them had to use the washroom they would stop and talk to Jack and give him encouragement and pat his little nose, as that was all they could touch (everything else was covered in bandages with drain tubes sticking out).  The girls were told not to disturb him and let him sleep but I had told them that he needed them so it was okay with me.

The next day the veterinarian phoned and told us that Jack had made a miracle recovery, he was standing and drinking on his own.  They kept him for one more day and then he was able to come home.  He had a lot of healing to do but he made it and to this day is full of life. It took a lot of years for his full recovery but he is great.

My daughter is now at a university but when she comes home our little Jack is so excited to see her.  We look at Jack not as a pet but a gift, and family. We helped him learn not to be so aggressive to where he is the most gentle little guy.  When we got our chicks he would check on them continually like he was their daddy, if they strayed too far away he would walk around them making them get closer to their bed to keep them safe. He greats me every day when I get home from work with so much excitement and when I am outside he is at my side wanting to help me with the chores, especially if it has to do with the chickens.

He loves life, he brings joy to us every day and we are so grateful that he became part of our family.

- Catherine  & Jack