Gabe

by PJJ

Nature was cruel to Gabe. It dealt him a bad hand.

Gabe was born an American Staffordshire Terrier. He has a red nose. He looks like a pit bull. If you put him in a Santa Claus suit with a big white beard and a Santa Claus cap, he would still look like a pit bull. Like a pit bull in a Santa suit.

That's a bad hand!

But wait! It gets worse.

Gabe came to some people who did not care to take time to train him properly to cope with life in a city. Boundless energy of youth, unbridled by proper training, made Gabe bound happily into traffic. He was run over by a car. He survived – with an injury to his spine.

Under the capable care of good veterinarians Gabe recuperated from his bout with disaster in an emergency hospital. He was not paralyzed, he could move freely, he could jump and run. Only on smooth surfaces his hind legs slip occasionally. Then he falls.

This time Gabe was lucky.

His lucky streak did not last long.

Gabe sat in his cage at the emergency hospital and waited, waited, waited for his family to come and take him home. They never came.

So, Gabe had to move to an animal shelter to wait a little more. He cheerfully did, making friends with kennel attendants along the way. They like him because of his pleasant, friendly nature. And he likes them because some of them let him climb in their lap. He doesn't know that he is a big boy. He doesn't know that people get scared when they see him. He doesn't know that people think he will eat their little Froufrou for breakfast.

He is a big, happy go lucky boy.

He even had his two minutes of fame on TV where he waited around peacefully together with a bunch of other shelter dogs. None turned up missing! Many found a new home. Gabe was not so lucky. After all he looks like a dangerous pit bull and even has a red nose. What about Rudolph? He also has a red nose. Is he dangerous?

And so Gabe went back to sitting in his cage a little longer, waiting for time to run out.

Gabe, the happy, friendly boy who never even harmed a lowly fly, may once again sit in vain.

He doesn't know life dealt him a losing hand.

Life just is not fair!