Bailey wasn't exactly in my plan...We just crossed paths.
I was driving and he ran in front of my car. I remember thinking is that a wolf? a dog? or a creature from Narnia? He was straggled and bedraggled and quite wild at that! He had a rusted chain around his mane and his ribs poked through his coat.
After some skillful and patient coaxing with Tomaso this sweet little Italian man speaking a mixture of Italian, English, and something else I didn't quite understand, we managed to get the flee-bagged, ticked, and tape wormed infested orphan into my car and back to my house.
I spent many hours cleaning and spraying. I was completely terrified that I would wake up with ticks crawling through my hair and burrowing under my skin. Shortly after this Bailey went for his first veterinarians appointment and I had the pleasure of finding out he was not only infested with exterior creepy crawly critters but that he was also deathly ill with worms crawling and creeping inside him too most notably his heart. Bailey had heartworm! I too was recovering from a worm in my heart so we seemed an ideal match :) We were hopeless heartbreakers together. Pat Bentar's "Love is a Battlefield" became our theme song over the summer of 2012!
This infested creature had immediately stolen my worm infested heart and I knew I had to help him get better someway somehow and that was my therapy. I didn't realize it at the time, but I needed him just as much as he needed me. So, over the course of a summer with arsenic injections and a very long list of meds that I hadn't budgeted in for Bailey lounged on my sofa, my bed, my floor, my hammock, at my feet , and mostly under my piano bench when I was writing songs late at night after coming home from earning our keep. My Bailey was lethargic and tired. He needed to rest up and heal. He became my own!
By fall he was robust and strong- By winter he was pulling me on a sled along the icy shores of Georgian Bay--By summer he was swimming and making huge bellyflopping waves off the rocks. You no longer could see his ribs poking through his shaggy fur. His coat was glistening...We were complimented on every outing. We were a gypsy pair he and I. His markings were made known- one floppy ear, a white chest, and a DISTINCT black cross on his tail, the description of a true crossbreed or an angel? your pick. He was my diamond in the ruff. My lesson learned-never judge a.book by its cover and have the courage to trust again.
Once the first summer was over I had prepared myself for the worst, to find him a good home. I was single, going on the road, free to explore and discover. I felt I couldn't have anything holding me back...Yet, there he was every day and every night under my piano bench, beside my bed, crying when I left the room, ecstatic when I came back, and clumsy as ever so I realized that sometimes life happens when you least expect it. I received a very special gift, a very loyal friend, and a special angel. He may not be able to talk but he sure can sing and he isn't going anywhere we're attached at the hip heartache to heartache (Because WE ARE YOUNG)! Here are some fun pics of Bailey (one with his fitted headphones that I'd mentioned in my last blog).
I just wanted to tell you a bit more in case you really thought he was goat!
~Mollie
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