Once upon a time, on a dark, stormy night when my family and I were having hotdogs for dinner, a banging sound was heard coming from the living room. When we came out to see what it was, we saw a muscular pitbull whining and throwing herself (and I do mean throwing herself) against the screen door.
Mom, believing that she was hungry, handed my little sister Jaime a hotdog to give to the dog. As soon as the door was opened, the dog burst into the house at full speed. We kids, being little at the time, ran for the bunk beds. Once we were all on the top bunk, the dog decided she wanted to join us, so she hopped right on up there. This of course led to our hopping down.
After a game of catch the kids, the dog finally settled down. I guess we'd worn her out. Well as she continued to live with us, we all grew quickly attached to her.
At first, I, being fascinated by the Disney movie, Anastasia, wanted to name her Anastasia. The others found this to be ridiculous, so after a bit of thinking, we eventually came up with the name Annie.
Annie was quite content to live with us; after all, she got to sleep on our furniture and get all the attention. My mom was babysitting some babies at the time, and Annie did wonderfully with them. The most harm she could do to them was drowning them with her kisses, lol. Wonderful pup as she was, Mom wasn't sure we should keep her. She was later given to the parents of one of the babies Mom babysat. Annie was tied to a tree and left there, even in the rain and thunderstorms. (Annie is terrified of thunderstorms.) The only shelter the poor pup could get was from under one of the trucks.
Some time later Mom changed her mind about getting rid of Annie, and she asked for her back. The family who had taken Annie in were kind enough to give her back to us, luckily. I can tell you how happy she was when she saw us again. As soon as she was let off that rope that tied her to the tree, she took off at full speed, racing all 'round the yard. From that point on, Annie's been living with us happy as she can be.
You know, there's a strange story to Annie's coming to us... When I was maybe 7 or 8, around that age, I prayed that one day I would get a dog. When Annie came to us, it was God's answer to my prayer. Even though we got Annie some years after I prayed for a dog, I knew that God works in His own time. Another strange thing: when Annie came to us, she seemed to have no owner. Annie seemed to come out of nowhere. I'm not saying God sent her to earth to come to us or anything like that. I'm saying Annie was God's gift to us.
Annie's done some pretty strange and funny things while she's been with us. One time, we had just come home from church and the phone started ringing. We couldn't find the phone and we all started shouting, "Where's the phone! Where's the phone!" Well Annie walked out of my parents bedroom calmly bringing the ringing phone to us!!! This was the strangest thing. If you want to know what the call was about, well, I don't remember. I sure would like to know though. Well this wouldn't be so strange if she'd been trained to do that, but later we had tried it and she never did it again. It was one of the weirdest things that's ever happened to us.
Another time, I had Annie on the leash outside. This was when she was really strong and muscular. (After living with us this long, she's gotten way overweight.) Anyway, I had her on the leash and Dad decided to call her. As soon as she heard her name called, she rushed over there with me flying (literally flying) through the air behind her. It was not a happy day for me I can tell you. It wasn't so much me getting hurt after an unsuccessful flight, it was just so embarrassing! Hmm, well, I can't think of anymore so I'm just going to publish this....
-Courtney Robinson-
♥ Annie ♥
