Another Mother Mourns Her Loss

Firstly, thank you all for your supportive comments on my previous post! Your insight helped greatly. I have decided to keep praying that things work out for them, but to let sleeping dogs lie for now. If in the future they come to us and apologize for what's happened, we'll go from there (I don't really see that happening, sadly), but for now, I can be content to try to keep positive people around me. I do have awesome online buddies and a couple of people IRL I can talk to as well. This has been and will continue to be a long, hard journey, but you all make it easier with your caring support.

Onto my thoughts for today. You all may remember me talking about our dog, Melly, in the past. She is the outdoor dog (Isabel is the indoor dog). A couple of months ago, Melly came into her first heat and, as usually happens with these things, she got pregnant (sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't be better off as a dog - they never seem to face things like infertility).

Yesterday, Melly gave birth to her very first litter. She had 7 puppies! They are all manner of cuteness and she is such a great mother to them. Today, The Hubs and I went to check on Melly and the puppies (we didn't get to see them yesterday, as we didn't get home until after dark. We let her out of her fenced area to use the restroom and have a run as we do every evening and noticed she wasn't plump and rounded like she had been that morning. She had a quick run and then went right back to her home. The Hubs put fresh water and food down for her, but couldn't see well enough to see the puppies. So today we went back to do a thorough check).

When we got to her pen, we opened the door and she ran out to do her business and have a run. We went in to check on the puppies. There were 3 black/brown and white puppies, 3 black puppies and a brown puppy. Then we noticed the sad thing. The brown puppy didn't make it. He was lying there with the others, but he wasn't moving as they were and he wasn't breathing. The Hubs bent down to retrieve him so we could bury him and, at that exact moment, Melly came running back in. She saw The Hubs trying to get the puppy and she ran over and licked the puppy several times and nudged him. The whole while she was whining. When The Hubs picked him up, she started crying, giving this sort of howling whine. She jumped and put her paws on The Hubs' chest and licked the puppy again. The Hubs showed her and told her the puppy had gone on, but she continued to cry.

The Hubs took the puppy out and told me he had hoped to get the puppy out before Melly had returned. We hadn't wanted her to see him, thinking she wouldn't remember the puppy if he wasn't there because, after all, she is only a dog. But, I realised something important today. It doesn't matter if you're human or a dog or a cat or whatever animal you may be. When you lose your child, you feel that hurt. You want your baby back. You just want the world to be right and for your child to be in it, living, loving and with you.

I've never suffered the loss of a child that I carried within me, but I did lose a child whom I had in my heart claimed as my own. I could sympathise with Melly. I leaned down and got nose to nose with her. I told her I understood and I was so sorry for her loss. She leaned her head on my shoulder and whined. I think she appreciated the comfort and the understanding, such as it was. She let me pet her other puppies and then she settled down with them and licked them continually for several minutes.

Everytime today that The Hubs and I have walked over to check on her, she has whined. A couple of times she has cried and I know she's missing her lost pup. For anyone who ever said a dog doesn't feel emotions as a human does, I ask them to come spend one day with my dog who, despite having 6 other puppies, still remembers the baby she lost.