All I saw was black but I knew something was different. My fur was finally dry and instinct led me to my mother's stomach as well as warm milk. Then it came to me… I was born.

Ten days have passed and I am now finally able to see my home now that my eyes have opened but I wish I could go back to being innocent of my surroundings. I am in what some people call a puppy mill. My mother is one of 213 other dogs. We are in a big old barn with no widows other than the big doors. We all dread going out through those big doors into one of the cold trucks because no one has ever come back. The smell is the worst thing of all though. No one ever cleans our pens and more then half of the residents here are sick.

On a brighter note my name is Molly number 16342 but everyone just calls me waggy because my tail never stops wagging. When I was six weeks old I was taken away from my mother through the big doors. A nineteen year old boy put my brothers, sisters and I in a cold metal cage and then roughly threw us into a big metal truck.

My brother Johnny died on that trip from fear, hunger, weakness and plague. His carcass lay in the corner with flies bussing around it. This was just a warning of how many of us would end up just like him.

Two days later we arrived at our destination. It was a large white building with nicer and friendlier people. At the front of the store was a big sign that said Pete's Puppies & Kara's Kittens. My sister Kathy was lucky and got a home with a young couple immediately. Jake unfortunately wasn't so lucky. He broke out with coccidia a common parasite in puppies brought on by stress. He lay down in the corner and would't eat or drink the whole day. When a lady asked what was wrong with him the employees just said "He's just quiet." Two day later they finally took him to the vet and he never came back.

That very same day was the day I met Billy. Billy was seven. His Dad was single and was kept busy taking care of Billy and his younger sister Annie. A perfect family for a puppy, don't you think. I couldn't understand human language at the time but I knew from the look in Billy's eyes I had a new home.

The next day Billy came back and bought me. Surprisingly, I was $600 because I was a pure bred blond Cocker Spaniel. For about two months I was in what seemed to be heaven with Dad and Billy and little Annie. Then it happened, Dad started dating a lady named Martha. One night he brought her home for dinner planning to proposal to her. Suddenly her face got all puffy and she couldn't even open her eyes. Next, it became hard for her to breath and they rushed her to the hospital. Martha was allergic to dog hair. Dad had to decide whether to dump Martha or dump me at the pound. He chose to dump me and my happy days with them were over. I have a vivid picture of Billy trying to run for the car tears streaming down his face screaming "No Daddy, no" while Martha held him back. I was put into what seemed to be a dog jail. Bars kept me away from freedom, food was limited and I was enclosed with an old Chihuahua that growled at me every time I tried to talk to him. An 84 year old widow with a rainbow scarf use to come every day to give treats to the dogs. Her name was Nelly. Nelly was the only person who could cheer me up. At last she told the girl named Charlotte she was going to take me home with her. Charlotte said that I would cost $15 and that she could pick me up tomorrow. Finally I had a real home. A home that I would be able to stay at for years. Despite her old age Nelly would play ball with me and we would take walks in the parks when I was a puppy. In the middle years it was even better I would lie by the fire while she gave me tummy rubs. She would slip me food off the table and even bring me to restaurants and by me ice-cream in the summer. When I grew old, I also grew warts but Nelly didn't mind. When we were both old I remember climbing up on to her lap and the motion of her rocker going back and forth lulling me to sleep. When Nelly was 97, thirteen years after she adopted me she went to sleep and never woke up.

Nelly had only one relative that could take me in her 40 years old daughter Sally. So she had to adopt me. As soon as she saw me her expression turned to disgust. For two weeks Sally kept me, until she had a cocktail party with her friends. I went to implore for food and one of them screamed "Yak! That things breath is horrible!" In my younger years Nelly always brushed my teeth but of lately she had forgotten. Her daughter just fed me and gave me water and tried her best to ignore me. Naturally when I opened my mouth my breath smelled horrible.

When you combined the smell and my warts I looked pretty bad. Nelly's daughter decided to take me to the pound. Luckily she loved her mother and Nelly loved me, so thinking she was doing me a favor, she put me in a no kill shelter. But really I was in jail again. They treated me fine but no one wanted a disgusting looking dog with warts all over it. There was one nice employee named Hannah that used to say "Poor Molly you didn't get a home yet, I'd take you but my other dogs are pit bulls and they would chew you to pieces." Every day she would say the same thing just making me more and more depressed. My life went on like this for a year until….

One day Hannah convinced the shelter to bring me to a veterinarian because one of my warts was infected. When I got there I didn't know it yet, but I was at my permanent home The vet Dr B was horrified when she saw all the infected warts on my body. She decided then and there she would not give me back to the shelter. Dr B and her daughter still have me to this day. All my warts are gone, due to a couple of hours of surgery and when ever my breath starts to smell bad I just get a dental. I have three other dog companions and six cats to keep me company. I can't jump up on the bed any more so I have my own king size dog bed on every floor. At night I dream about my past owners Nelly and Billy but for now I am happy and I think it will stay that way forever.