“I looked at all the caged animals in the shelter…

The cast-offs of human society.

I saw in their eyes love and hope, fear and dread, sadness and betrayal.

And I was angry. “God,” I said, “this is terrible!

Why don’t you do something?”

God was silent for a moment

And then He spoke softly.

“I have done something,” He replied.

“I created You.”

                                                                  -Jim Willis

​PREFACE

      

I never realized the depth of my loneliness.

     Until I got a dog.

     I never understood how someone could love something so much, that they would go to the end of the earth to see its happiness.

     Love, to me, was how it was in the movies. That long lost kiss…

The kiss in Footloose when Ren gets the nerve to kiss Ariel. Or that illicit kiss when Father Ralph de Bricassart succumbs to Meggie in the forbidden romance, The Thorn Birds. Or in WITNESS, when John Book and Rachel run to each other in the field and kiss. One kiss.

     A kiss to last a lifetime.

     Love to me was always feeling; a state of being…

     I never realized it wasn’t anything of the sort.

Real love was life in the hard places: getting up at 2 am when your dog needs to go to the bathroom. Trying to pick up his runs when he has diarrhea with a plastic bag, picking up her large loads; three, sometimes four, five times a day. Running into the woods after her when her favorite blue ball gets stuck in a thorn bush.

     Her eyes looking up at me like, C’mon, Mom, you can do it. You’re only going to get pricked a thousand times!

     Love is realizing that when she gets scared, like when she hears thunder or a loud noise that sounds like gunshots and she goes cowering into her cage, that it’s okay. That I actually love getting on my hands and knees and petting her; comforting her during these times, telling her in a soft voice that it’s going to be okay.

     Never having been married, I always lived life for myself. I was a gypsy; flying around from destination to destination, going on yachts, overseas, traveling the world, man after man, party after party, living for the moment.

     Never tie down, never lock down…

     Never. Be.

     Trapped.

     I had three goals: no husband, no employer, no landlord.

     And after I achieved two out of three, I got her: Meg.

     She came into my life during a very hard period. I was too young to retire but I felt old… having lived a full life; a life only for myself. But now there was her, my big, beautiful German Shepherd beast.

     She was fierce, loving, smart, strong, brave. And I never realized she would change my life in ways unimaginable.

     Here is our journey.  

     And if you’re reading this, and you have the time or the money to rescue an animal, please do it.

     This book is written for you.

     You will learn so much about yourself and about life; and through their eyes, see it so much differently.

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H E D G E D

@copyright Citygirl Juliana Jones 2025 💕💋

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READ CHAPTER ONE HERE!!!!

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CLICK HERE TO SEE PHOTOS OF MEG, THE LOVE BUG !!!!!!!

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Read where it all began:  LEAVING SANTA MONICA FOR FLORIDA

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