Hard Day

Breeding dogs has taught me more life lessons than I care to recount but more than any others, it has taught me that death is the intimate partner of life. Despite our best efforts to ignore and avoid it, the period to every life is a passing to another world. Today that lesson was taught to us again.

Miss Rainbow left us this afternoon. It's hard to believe that beautiful little girl, whose life was so brief, is gone but she is. Her exhausted mother who has been as diligent a first-time dam as I've ever seen, had a moment of confusion and lay on her baby girl. I was downstairs greeting the next puppy watcher who was coming to babysit while I had to work. In those few moments, that life lesson was learned again.

Dreamer knew something was wrong and after doing her best to revive her daughter, calmly allowed us to work on her baby. It was as if she knew that this situation was beyond her abilities and put her trust in us. Alas, it was also beyond mine. Despite an extended period of resuscitation attempts, I could not make that beautiful heart beat again. Sometimes love and intention just isn't enough.

It's been an afternoon of tears but I know that the real lesson is in front of me, in ten lively golden souls and their loving mother. We cry, we rail against the seeming unfairness of lives cut short, and we wish there were another way but then we have to move on and turn our eyes to the day. So tonight join us in lighting a candle for Miss Rainbow because tomorrow we will again return to celebrating life and the joy these puppies will bring to ours.