Sparkle is not pregnant. It is hard to say that knowing it will be disappointing news.
An empathic heart can be a liability as I carry my own sorrow for the news and cringe internally imagining how it will “land” on others.
At age 6.5+ years and with three “misses” Sparkle is officially done. She is an incredible dog — I so wanted a second litter from her.
Dogs are free to remove themselves from the attention of children — or anyone, for that matter. Sparkle enjoys the kids and their interactions are ALWAYS supervised to ensure the kids learn how to treat animals. Berkeley is enjoying my traveling pillow and her warm friend.
Resilience appears to be one of my Super Powers — and so yes, I am disappointed and sad but I am also okay. After all, I still have my amazing dog — and she is all that and more.
And so we close that chapter and open some new ones, rearranging plans for 2020 to accommodate for those new chapters.
We are planning to breed two Sparkle daughters in 2020: Jordan in April/May and Claire in June/July.
I am still pondering what to do about Daisy. I want a puppy from both Jordan and Claire, and so adding Daisy could be complicated. I do not breed my dogs to sell puppies — I breed them so that I can keep a carefully and thoughtfully bred puppy — and three young puppies, if all went according to plan, would not be fair to any of them.
On the other hand, when do things go exactly according to plan?!
Hmmmm…
And so there you go — more real Life with Dogs. Not all ribbons and awards and fun. But that is the nature of Life in General, right?
And it means that something amazing is up ahead because Life is like that — downs and ups. We ride the downs so we can have those exhilarating UPS — and they always come.