Rags: A Short Story

Imagine being a ten year old girl watching her own dog die. Home alone, babysitting two boys, one at the age of seven, the other three. That was me. But let’s rewind and talk about events leading up the the situation I was in. My dog, Riggs, was always a big guy. He loved food and whenever no one was looking, my brothers, sister and I would sneak him a few treats here and there. He was always a healthy dog. Tons of energy and boy did he love to play fetch with my dad. Riggs wasn’t an aggressive dog. He was sweet and always welcomed new people in. Riggs was about eight years old when we first noticed him getting sick. Like I said, he always had energy, but at that time he was very mellow, didn’t do a lot, never wanted to get up when people came …show more content…
Time went on and Riggs progressively got worse right in front of our eyes. His legs were weak and at times could barely make it to the back door to go to the bathroom. At that point both my parents decided it was time to call the vet and get some advice, but of course they said to bring him in and get him treated. We didn’t have much money at the time and my parents knew it would cost too much if we would’ve taken him in to get checked out. After that call, Riggs wasn’t better but wasn’t getting worse for quite some time. Until one day things took a turn for the worst. It was Sunday, my dad had just left to go to a funeral, my sister was at work and my mom, brothers and I were all at home. It was about one in the afternoon and my mom mentioned she had to go run some errands. I was okay with it, I always watched my little brothers when my parents were gone, it wasn’t a big deal to me. Well, right before my mom left, Riggs had thrown up. A lot. We took him to the backyard just in case he had to throw up again and my mom picked up the puke. I sat outside with Riggs until my mom …show more content…
Riggs took one step into the house before he had a major seizure. He collapsed and his whole body went into shock. At that point I broke down. Crying and screaming to my brothers to grab my phone and call mom immediately. I was lost, I didn’t know what to do. I laid on the floor with Riggs for a good three to four minutes, holding him and waiting for the seizure to stop. Still crying and screaming, I managed to get my brother to call my mom and overheard him on the phone with her, “Mom you need to hurry...I don’t know why Isa’s screaming...just hurry mom please.” My brother said. He proceeded to hand me the phone so i could talk to my mom and explain exactly what was happening. I pushed my brothers out of the room and got them to go upstairs because I didn’t want them to see the state Riggs was in. The words that came out of my mouth while on the phone with my mom made zero sense but I think she got what I was trying to say. By the time I was off the phone with my mom, Riggs’s seizure stopped, and he looked like nothing. Almost as if he died right then and there but his heart was still