"Well Caidleagh, you ruined the surprise. You’re getting a puppy for your birthday!” My mom told me a couple of weeks before my 15th birthday. Little did I know that those words started the best time of my life.

I decided to name her Nala. She was born June 16, 2016. The first time I saw at her cute little, fluffy and spotted, face I fell in love. She had had these eyes that just stole your heart right out of your chest when she looked at you. Nala was an Australian Shepherd, Border Collie mix.

My mom's boss was Nala’s breeder, so we were able to go to their house and see the puppies before they were ready to go to their forever homes. One time my best friend Samie came with me to visit Nala, and then she ended up buying one of Nala’s brothers. She named him Cobalt, because of his piercing blue eyes, but we call him Cobi for short.

Nala and Cobi grew up together, and were the best of friends. They did absolutely everything together. Samie and I would take them to the park together, the groomers, and all of our mini road trips that we did. We even took them on our road trip to California. Nala very shortly became the best thing that had ever happened to me. She was the thing in my life that took away all my stress, all of my problems, she was my happiness.

Then came the absolute worst days of my life. May 12th 2018. I got a call from my mom while I was at my friends pool, “ Hey Caidleagh, she’s okay right now but we’re on our way to the vet. Nala was tied up but she fell out of the bed of aunt Lori’s truck and went under the back tire. She’s still moving but she’s in a lot of pain.” My heart shattered into about a trillion pieces. My mom was in Hood River, so I got in my car and drove there from Vancouver as soon as I got off the phone. When I got to the Alpine Animal Hospital my mom was waiting for the vet to take x-rays. After about an hour of waiting we were able to see the x-rays. Nala had a really bad break in her right femur and the bone in her tail was completely separated from her spine, but her pelvis and hips were fine and it didn’t look like there was any internal bleeding. With that news we were a little relieved. We then had to load her into the car and transfer her to the 24hr emergency VCA animal hospital in Clackamas. The drive there took about an hour and a half, and it was the most painful drive ever. Towards the end Nala’s pain meds started wearing off. She was just whining for the last half hour of the drive. But it wasn’t just a regular whine. It was the most heart-wrenching, excruciatingly painful whine I’ve ever heard, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to listen to. Once we got there they told us that Nala was in pretty critical condition and was losing a lot of blood. It turned out that her femur break had nicked the femoral artery and she was bleeding internally. The vet said we needed to act fast if there was a chance for her to survive. We decided to give her blood transfusions to try and get her stable enough to go into surgery to amputate her tail and possibly her leg. While Nala was getting the transfusion, my mom and I went home and waited to get a call from the vet about how she was doing. A couple hours later we got the call and the vets said the she had done really good and she was starting to become stable. After that call we were so relieved, we decided to fall asleep for a little bit because it was midnight by that time.

May 13, 2018 1:00am, Mothers day. My mom got a call from the vet telling us that Nala went back into shock while they were getting ready to start the second round of transfusions. At that point I made the hardest decision of my life, to put her down so she didn’t have to go through any more pain and suffering. My mom and I drove to the vet, we got there around 2am. Then I held my baby in my arms as she passed away. The vet told me I could stay with her as long as I needed. My mom had to drag me away from her after about an hour or two of me just laying next to her body, crying until I had no more tears left.

After all this happened, I understand that you really need to appreciate and love the things and people that are given to you because they can get taken away from you at any second.