Raylan | Teen Ink

Raylan

January 17, 2018
By Crackelheather BRONZE, Blue Mound, Illinois
Crackelheather BRONZE, Blue Mound, Illinois
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

One night last March my sister was taking our dog out. We never took her out on a leash because she had a shock collar. I was in my room when I heard some guy ask my sister “is that your dog, I just hit her”. Then Alexandra started screaming for my dad, but he didn’t hear her. So I  ran downstairs yelling “dad Raylan got hit”. I’d never seen my parents move so fast, they jumped up and we all ran outside, without shoes. All I was hearing was my mom screaming and all of us crying. My mom and dad picked her up and left to take her to the vet. That was the last time we saw her. The next day was very hard for all of us, especially because we had to go back to school. Alexandra and I were late to our first hour because she was in the car crying, and I was there so she wouldn’t be alone. Once we got home we went to our pond, Raylan's favorite place in the whole world, and buried her. That was one of the hardest days of my life.


We had been at our grandma’s house while my parents had to run some arrons. When we came home we walked in the door and a little brown puppy came running up to us. The expressions on our faces were most likely priceless. We all asked “can we keep her” because we had never had a puppy before. I thought it was one of our family friends dogs, but it wasn’t she was ours. She was the best dog a family could ask for.


Every so often I will go back and look at old pictures of her and cry. I have so many emotions about this event in my life. I am angry at the person who hit her, but I know it wasn’t all his fault. I am sad because she is not here to spend every day with. She wasn’t just a dog, she was a best friend and family. On the night that it happened I couldn’t sleep and my stomach was in a knot. All I could hear was Alexandra crying from the living room which made me cry. I felt like throwing up, but I never did. I felt so empty inside. I absolutely hated this feeling and just wanted it to go away, but it wouldn’t for a long time.


It’s now November and I still miss her every day, but as the days pass I am starting to move on more and more. She will never be erased from my memories or from the past. Everyone in my family is moving on. A few weeks after the accident my sister's boyfriend bought her a puppy, a mini Australian Shepherd, they named her Arizona. As the months passed we were already on the waiting list for another Boykin Spaniel, the same bread as Raylan. One day we were on our way home from Michigan when my mom was looking at English Springer Spaniel puppies when my mom came across a breeder in Rochester. So that night we went and looked at the puppies and sure enough my mom wanted one. I got to pick him out. His name was Petre at the time and we now call him Dodg. We went to pick him up in September. A few days before we picked him up we found out we were getting another puppy in October. We went and picked Dodg up and then a month later we went and picked up Ruddy. We love these puppies so much and are taking every precaution so this accident doesn’t ever happen again.


The author's comments:

I am Heather and I'm from Illinois. This piece of writing means so much to me because this dog meant so much to my family and I. We loved her so much and are trying to move on.


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