Love Is Blind: The Magic of Tabby
In October, 2003 I started my work at my local animal shelter’s Adoption Department. Over the years, more than 50,000 animals have ____1____ the doors of the shelter. Most of them, I do not remember. But occasionally there are ____2____ animals, who touch me so deeply that I could never possibly ____3____ them. Tabby was one such animal.
Tabby was an ancient Cocker Spaniel, probably 14 years old. What’s more, she was blind and deaf. Tabby’s chances at adoption seemed ____4____ at best. After all, we didn’t have many adopters coming in ____5____, “Can you show me all of your really old dogs who are also ____6____?” We had all thought that Tabby would live out the rest of her life at the ____7____.
One day a woman named Loretta came to the shelter. Her son, Gary, had ____8____ Tabby’s picture and stories on the shelter’s website at home. They were interested in meeting her! It was the only ____9____ we ever received about Tabby. What could a young child possibly see in a 14-year-old dog who was both blind and deaf? Most boys would want a dog who could grow with them and ____10____ through grassy fields on summer days. Tabby would ____11____ be able to do that. But after meeting her, Loretta and Gary decided that she was the right dog for their family. They adopted Tabby!
If Tabby’s story had simply ended with her ____12____ adoption, it would still have been something very special indeed. ____13____, it was what happened after her adoption that people might regard as “magic”. Gary ____14____ from seizures(癫痫). Since Gary and Tabby met they became ____15____. They did everything together. They became so “in tune” with one another that Tabby began to telegraph Gary’s seizures ____16____ they occurred, giving his family ____17____ that one was about to strike. What’s more, Gary seemed to be having fewer and fewer seizures since Tabby’s ____18____.
How could it be? Nobody could explain ____19____ Tabby did it. But those of us who were fortunate enough to know her and her family had ____20____ the magic, the kind that has its roots in love.