{"id":41349,"date":"2023-12-15T10:47:04","date_gmt":"2023-12-15T14:47:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelaker.ca\/?p=41349"},"modified":"2023-12-15T10:47:04","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T14:47:04","slug":"the-things-about-threes-from-the-ns-spca","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/?p=41349","title":{"rendered":"The Things about threes – From the NS SPCA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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From the NS SPCA’s The Paw Print (shared with permission)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

HALIFAX:<\/strong> They say bad things happen in threes. But sometimes you\u2019re lucky enough to have something that helps you get through them. For me, that thing had four legs and a wet nose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can imagine working in this environment it can be tempting to adopt every animal. Over the past six years with the Nova Scotia SPCA, I\u2019ve witnessed thousands of inspiring pet transformations.

Deep down I always knew the most perfect match for that pet was out there. And my (or realistically my husband\u2019s) willpower was strong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, that all went out the window when I met Hazel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was a regular Tuesday morning.\u00a0I had walked into the shelter to film a video of a cat to highlight on Jack 92.9\u2019s Wet Nose Wednesday when I saw Hazel\u2019s puppy dog eyes.

I began asking questions and talking faster than any East Coaster \u2013 ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shelter staff explained that Hazel, 14-years-young, was the newest member of the Palliative Care Program<\/strong><\/a>. She found herself in the SPCA\u2019s care when her owner sadly passed away. And I found myself frantically calling my husband.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just like that, Hazel came home with us.

With Hazel\u2019s age and health conditions, we committed to giving her love in her sunset years. Little did we know Hazel would become our rock through three big life challenges.

Only weeks after adopting Hazel, wildfires hit our community<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While my colleagues at the SPCA jumped into action to help displaced families, we fled our home \u2013 unsure if we would ever see it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My husband, a Firefighter, went to work while I, like many others, anxiously listened for updates. I didn\u2019t know how to get out of bed. That is, until I felt a nudge from Hazel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She did some of her best work giving unconditional love that week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months later, she was called into action for the second time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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(NS SPCA photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I ended up suffering from a freak fainting spell home alone. Because of this, I ended up with a concussion and a tear to my rotator cuff.

While I recovered, Hazel became my shadow. She stuck by my side no matter what I was doing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as I was starting to feel back to myself again, we were hit with the third and most devastating blow- blow \u2013 losing my gramps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hazel, the pup who refused to sleep on beds of any kind, crawled into bed with us every morning. She would lay her head on my chest as I cried. I\u2019m convinced Hazel knew what we were going through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hazel had experienced before what it was like to suddenly lose a loved one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After these three things happened, I was out for a walk with Hazel and was convinced that 2023 was awful and unlucky. But this is when she taught me her best lesson to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was pouring rain but Hazel was experiencing pure joy. I chuckled to myself about how pets live permanently in the present. They are only thinking about today and right now<\/em>. They are grateful and can find the good in everything.

She was simply happy because she was with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hazel. (SPCA photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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While we continued our walk, I shifted my outlook. Maybe this year we were actually extremely lucky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1.\u00a0 With the wildfires, our garage went up in smoke and the fire came within feet of our home\u2026 but somehow, our home and family members were all spared.
2.\u00a0 With my accident, I needed 8 weeks of physio\u2026 but didn\u2019t require surgery.
3.\u00a0 With my gramps, he left our world\u2026 but we were able to be with him in his final moments to surround him with love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, as this year comes to a close, I\u2019m choosing to have a Hazel mindset where I look for the pawsitive things in life.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[adrotate banner=”206″] [adrotate banner=”148″] From the NS SPCA’s The Paw Print (shared with permission) HALIFAX: They say bad things happen in threes. But sometimes you\u2019re lucky enough to have something that helps you get through them. For me, that thing had four legs and a wet nose. You can imagine working in this environment it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41351,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,957],"tags":[2,50,5859,121,1260,5860,4046],"class_list":["post-41349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-news","tag-fall-river","tag-halifax","tag-hazel-the-puppy","tag-hrm","tag-n-s-spca","tag-paw-print","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-z.thelaker.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}