Once upon a time there was a little girl who had a dog named Leo. The girl loved Leo to death. Leo was just a puppy when she got him. She would take him for walks, and play with him in the back yard everyday. Leo was her best friend. She loved him like no child had ever loved their pet before. Leo was such a happy dog and had a good life with the girl. Until school started.

The girl had to go to school, so she couldn’t be with Leo all the time like they are used to. Leo couldn’t handle the separation, it scared him. Leo would start acting up while the girl was at school, and the girls parents didn’t like it. The little girls mom could tolerate him acting up and could deal with it, more than the girls dad could. One day while the little girl was at school, Leo started acting up real bad. He kept getting into things he knew not to get into, he even ran away when her dad went to take him outside. The little girls dad couldn’t take it anymore. When Leo came back after so long, her dad grabbed him and took him to the basement, where he would beat Leo with any hard object that was near. He carried on doing this every time Leo would act up, or if her dad was angry, he would take it out on Leo.

The little girl would come home and notice Leo acting different, not like himself. He seemed not as loving and playful.

One day there was no school, but her dad didn’t know that. The little girl took Leo upstairs while her dad was still asleep, so she could play with him. She left Leo upstairs in her room while she went to the bathroom, and her dad woke up and heard Leo upstairs. Her dad jumped out of his bed and ran upstairs to the bedroom. He found Leo innocently laying on the bed, not doing anything. He instantly got furious. He went to the bed angrily, grabbed Leo by the collar and lifted him up, choking him. He pulled Leo by the collar down the hall to the top of the stairs. He took Leo and threw him down the stairs.

Leo laid at the bottom of the stairs, crying. The little girl heard him and ran out of the bathroom. As soon as she seen him, she screamed at the top of her lungs. She ran over to him and started hugging him and checking him all over to see if he was okay. Her dad ran down the stairs yelling at her to get away from Leo. She started crying and telling her dad no. When her dad got to the bottom of the stairs, she grabbed Leo tightly. Her dad told her in an angry voice to let go, but she didn’t. The dad got even angrier.

The dad slapped the little girl, making her fall over, letting go of Leo. The little girl got scared, and crawled underneath the table, crying. The dad grabbed Leo by the collar again and drug him to the basement stairs, where he kicked Leo down into the basement. As the dad was walking down the stairs, Leo tried to get up and get away, but he couldn’t. The dad grabbed him by the collar once more, and started beating Leo with a belt. He threw Leo in the cage when he was done with him, and left him there all bloody, almost lifeless. The little girl ran down there after her dad went back upstairs. She went over to the cage slowly, because it was dark, shaking because she could hear the faint whimpers of her dog, the one thing she loves the most, in the worst pain. She opened the cage, and Leo snapped at her. She jumped back, so he didn’t bite her. She started talking to him, so he knows that it is her. She grabs a washcloth, puts water on it, and wipes Leo off, so he isn’t all bloody. She didn’t know how to help with the wounds, so she just grabbed a blanket, covered him up, and laid in the cage with him to comfort him. She stayed down there with Leo until her mom came home.

When the little girl’s mom came home, she noticed the house was dead silent. The dad was sleeping again, everyone else was gone, but the little girl and Leo weren’t in sight. The mom went upstairs to see if they were up there, they weren’t. She started to worry. Finally, after about a half an hour or so, she went downstairs to check if they were down there. She seen the little girl in the cage with Leo, asleep. She walked over to wake them up, but the girl seen her and started freaking out and started yelling and screaming at her mom, because it was dark and she couldn’t see that it was her mom, instead of her dad. Her mom turned the light on to see what was going on, and noticed the bloody washcloth, and the dog being all bloody. She asked what happened, and the girl tried explaining it, but was crying too hard to explain all of it. The mom started crying as the girl told her what happened. The mom pulled Leo out of the cage to check him, he was cut all over, there was no way she could help Leo, but she still tried. She left the little girl to protect Leo while she went to make a few phone calls. An hour or so later, the mom came back down and explained to the little girl that Leo couldn’t stay there anymore, that he needed to get help, and they couldn’t provide that. The little girl bursted out in tears, latching onto Leo, telling him that she loves him and she will always love him. She explained to him how she wouldn’t let anything like that happen to him again, and that’s why she has to send him away to a better place. The mom patched up Leo, and let him sleep with the little girl, one last night, before he was gone.

The next day, the little girl woke up to silence. Leo was gone, her mom was gone, her brother and sister were gone, and her dad was asleep. She went into the kitchen to get a drink, and seen a note on the fridge that told her that her mom would be back soon that she had to take Leo to a safe place. Later that night, her mom came home, and told the little girl about Leo. She had taken him to a lab rescue center and they were going to heal him and try to train him to be a service dog. 5-6 years later, the girl is almost 17, and all she has heard about Leo was he is still alive, and he was trained and he was one of the best service dogs they had ever had. He is with a family helping them and won’t have to retire for about 2 more years, and the family treats him really well and care for him a lot.