There are few relationships as pure and transformative as the one between a person and their dog. Daisy isn’t just my pet. She isn’t just company. Daisy is the love of my life—the reason I kept breathing on nights when I didn’t think I could. She has been my anchor, my laughter, my comforter, my protector. For five years, she was the one creature in this world who gave me unconditional love when everything else felt impossible.
But now Daisy, the one who saved me, needs saving herself.
Seeing the Signs
I didn’t recognize it at first. When I traveled last year, Daisy looked thinner when I picked her up. I thought maybe it was just her refusing to eat while I was gone. I told myself she missed me too much to touch her food. But this year, I started to notice something darker.
The people who kept her while I was gone weren’t protecting her. The other dogs bullied her. They took her food. They took her treats. I even remember it being mentioned once: “Oh, Daisy didn’t eat her treat—the big dogs just grabbed it.” I brushed it off at the time, but now I realize what that meant. My little girl wasn’t refusing food. She was scared to fight for it.
And somewhere in that time away, something changed in her.
When Trauma Turns to Fear
Since living here with Matthew and me, Daisy has become fiercely territorial over her food. She guards it like it’s the last meal she’ll ever see. She snaps. She growls. And yes, she bites.
Last night, she bit Matthew in the face. We ended up in the ER. It was superficial, thank God, but animal control will still need to be involved. And sitting there in that sterile hospital room, looking at him bandaged and thinking of her trembling in the house, my heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
Because I know what’s underneath it. Daisy isn’t mean. Daisy isn’t broken. Daisy is traumatized. And now her pain is bleeding into our lives in ways that terrify me.
The Weight of Guilt
I can’t shake the guilt. I feel responsible. I’m the one who left her with people who didn’t protect her. I’m the one who thought she was just being stubborn with her food. I’m the one who didn’t see the fear growing inside her until it turned into something sharp.
Matthew is the man I love. Daisy is the reason I’m alive. Now they’re caught in each other’s orbit, and I’m in the middle—trying to protect them both.
It’s the shittiest position I’ve ever been in. And yet, I know this is not Daisy’s fault. She was bullied, neglected, stripped of safety. Now she’s surviving the only way she knows how.
The Hard Part No One Talks About
The bite changed things. It was the face. It was the ER. It was paperwork. And now, animal control will be watching. I’ll have to explain Daisy to strangers who don’t know her heart, who only see “bite history” and “liability.” I’ll have to advocate for her harder than I’ve ever advocated for myself.
That scares me. But if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that I won’t abandon her. Not now. Not after everything she’s given me.
The Love That Doesn’t Quit
It’s easy to love Daisy when she’s curled on the couch, eyes heavy, sighing against my chest. It’s harder to love her when she’s trembling, growling, and flashing teeth. But that’s when she needs my love the most.
She doesn’t understand ER visits and liability. She doesn’t understand that Matthew is safe, that her food will never be stolen again. She only understands that once, safety disappeared. Once, survival meant guarding everything you had.
Loving her now means rewriting that story with her. Slowly. Patiently. Day after day.
The Haunting Truth
The cruel irony is this: the little dog who kept me alive for five years now needs me to keep her alive. Daisy saved me when I couldn’t carry myself. Now she’s asking me to carry her through her own shadows.
It breaks me that trauma found her. But I refuse to let trauma define her. She is still my Daisy—the one who made me laugh when I wanted to disappear, the one who curled beside me when I couldn’t sleep, the one who reminded me I was worth loving just by looking at me like I was her entire world.
So I’ll fight for her. I’ll stand between her and the ghosts. I’ll get her help. I’ll be her safe place again. Because she deserves it. Because she’s family. Because when everything else fell apart, she stayed.
And that’s what I owe her: to stay.