On September 16th, 2001 my mom decided to make me face my fear of dogs. We went to the shelter and adopted the calmest puppy and named him Ira. What we thought was a calm puppy wreaked havoc for the the next four years. Every time we would leave the house Ira would feast upon miscellaneous items around the house and destroy anything he could get his paws on. However, once Ira turned five he did calm down and became a loyal, trustworthy companion. But, with Ira there was always something amiss and two years later he was diagnosed with diabetes and would require Insulin shots twice a day. Aside from this he was otherwise healthy until he nine years old when we were told that he was critically ill and needed emergency surgery. Ira wasn’t ready
