Hello,
My name is Tommie. I’m a fluffy 6-pound pomeranian, mostly black with white tufts on my feet, neck and face. They say I’m about 7 or 8 years old, but sometimes I feel like I’m ten times older. Just look in my eyes and you can see that I’ve been through a lot, and I know that my journey to my forever home is not quite over yet. But I’m waiting and hopeful.
You see, I had a home for a very long time with the same human. They were all I knew. I didn’t think there was more to life, and frankly, I was fine with that. I had a back yard to play in and a warm lap to sleep in. I was as happy as any dog could be!
But then something happened that I still don’t understand. My human seemed to change. They didn’t have as much energy, and they didn’t seem to be very happy. They tried to do the same things for me that they’d always done, but it seemed as though it had become much harder for them to do so. Something was wrong, but I didn’t know what.
Then one day, my human took me to a strange place. It was loud and cold and there was a lot of things happening. Nothing like my quiet and peaceful home. As my human handed me over to strange hands, I could feel their sadness and pain. They said something to me like, “Don’t worry. You’ll be OK,” but I suddenly became very scared that everything I had ever known was about to change. And it did.
It seemed as though years had gone by of sitting in a strange metal cage surrounded by strange noises, humans and other dogs that were just as confused, scared and sad as I, when a nice lady with long dark hair and a big smile suddenly appeared in front of my cage. She gently scooped me up, and before I knew it, we were walking out of that horrible, loud, noisy, sad place. We got into a car and drove away. I was so relieved to be out of that prison, but I still felt a little anxious not knowing where I was going or what was about to happen. But the lady I was with seemed so nice, so loving, that I had a sense that things were going to be better, and I relaxed a little bit for the first time in what seemed like forever.
When the car stopped, the nice lady brought me into a big house, and before I knew it I was surrounded by a bunch of other dogs!! It was a little overwhelming, but they all seemed to have something in common with me somehow. They were all nice to me, and mostly calm and I got the feeling that a lot of them had been through some of the same things as I had. I missed my human, and I hoped they were OK, but this new place had lots of warm places to cuddle up in, windows to look out of, and even though there was a lot going on almost all the time, all the humans were so nice to me, and would let me sit on their lap and pet me. I was beginning to feel much better.
But then, things changed again! Another lady with yellow hair showed up one day and spent some time talking to the nice lady who had brought me here, and both of them kept looking over at me. Then the new lady scooped me up, put me in a harness and leash, and together we walked to another place. This place wasn’t as big as the last place, but it was warm and a little quieter and there was only one other dog there besides me, who was about half my size! The new lady was very nice to me too and let me sleep wherever I wanted and took me on nice walks with Little Dog. She gave us treats and she would let me sit on her lap while she was staring at a big box of light, which she seemed to do quite a bit! I had a feeling that this wasn’t my forever home either, but for now, it was pretty good, and I could relax.
Well, that’s when my story gets a little more complicated and some things happened that I didn’t really understand – it was all kind of a blur. Over the past year I’ve been taken care of by a bunch of different people in lots of different places. They were all very nice, and gave me all the things I could ever want, but then sometimes they’d leave me alone, and I’d remember that day at the noisy metal place when my human left and never came back, and a terrible fear would come over me, as if it were happening all over again! What if they’d never come back either???
They always came back and tried to assure me that everything was OK. And even when sometimes I made a mistake and had an accident inside, they were still very calm and loving. But somehow, I knew the day would come that I would end up going to yet another place. And I did.
Sometimes, I was sent back to stay at the little apartment with the yellow-haired lady and Little Dog. And that’s where I am today. I know the lady tries her best to give me the life I want, and sometimes she gets very sad because she can’t give it to me. She can see in my eyes that all this uncertainty, all these changes happening without warning with no promise of it ever stopping has changed me. She sees my nervous behavior, my confusion over whether or not I can trust the smallest things, my startling at the tiniest of noises. And she hears my frightened barking whenever she walks out the door and leaves me and Little Dog alone. I know she’ll come back – she always does, but I also know that this isn’t my forever home.
The lady will pick me up and hug me and promise me that the day is coming when I’ll finally have the peace, love, attention and stability that I want so bad. She tells me I’m a good boy and not to lose hope.
If I could, I would tell her that I haven’t lost hope at all, even if it seems that way. My old happy-go-lucky self is just below the surface and will come out as soon as I know for sure that it’s safe to. And when that day comes, I will repay whoever gives me that home with love and joy and companionship for as long as I live.
My lady tells me I’m a special guy, one of a kind, and that it will be a special person that will end up being my forever human. If you’ve gotten to the end of my long story, maybe that special person is you.
