Zaras List

April 23, 2007

She came into the shelter with a bulging belly with a story to tell. On April 1st, 2007 10 little ones told the story for her. She is a great Mom who takes excellent care of her pups. Our rescue had hopes that she'd find a home for her and her 10 pups but on April 17th we got the call that Mom and pups were to be euthanized if they didn't find a home in 24 hours.

Banana and her 10 splits joined our rescue. They are 3 weeks old and what a bundle of fun. The pups have decided to throw away all conventional wisdom. Yeah, they like Mom but they like her food even more (and that doesn't mean food coming from her!) and that includes her dry food. It's quite the challenge to keep her food away from them and keep them focused on their own food which we weren't prepared at this young of age to even feed them! But they have minds of their own and so we are learning to go with the flow and if they want to trudge ahead early, we'll let 'em.

There are 6 females and 4 males. The girls rule the roost and the boys let them or at least let them think that they do...

February 12, 2008

A Letter from the Foster Mom:

They appeared to be a vibrant litter from the shelter. We'd never taken a litter from this shelter but they had a place blocked off specifically for litters and we felt relatively safe taking on the litter. We had no idea what was about to come.

After a very short time in our rescue, just long enough for us to fall madly in love, to begin to see their personalities develop and shine, our little puppies one by one became sick. The diagnosis was clear. The prognosis was grim and we knew what the end result would be. It was distemper. We would lose our puppies.

The worst was day by day to watch over them, begging and pleading with their little bodies to fight off this horrible virus that should have infected anyone but them. We grasped at what appeared to be little victories when we thought for just a moment that one would be getting better. We prayed for a miracle. But there would be no miracle for this litter. Losing the babies day by day was a torture that no one should ever have to live through but I can speak unequivocally that the day we lost Mom will forever stand as the day that truly tested our capacity for pain. The agony of lifting her into the car and knowing that it would be her last car ride and she wouldn't be returning except in a box that would sit on our mantle was a nightmare that has taken 8 months to even be able to speak of. We had to make that choice because her body had given up and you just can't let her suffer but even then you question it. You ask all the What If's... It was a decision that you wish on no one and one that is made with an agony no one will ever understand. To hold her in your lap as she looks up at you begging you to end the misery is a look that will haunt our collective soul. Holding her and rocking long after she was gone because you just can't believe you lost her, that's a day you feel as if you've lost everything. It's days like this that you walk away from rescue. A heart can only beat and give so much...

Knowing that sometimes you fight with everything you have, you pour money into their lives begging for someone to do something, you stay up night after night watching as their poor little bodies fight and fight and for it to end like this? Why?

It's been almost 8 months. I was asked to write this over and over and I couldn't. It is a horror and a pain that has gripped me to the core of who I am. I go to their vibrant pictures and I sob at what could have been...I could be getting pictures now with updates telling me how wonderful they are doing in their new homes, asking advice how to deal with Lab problems. We could be laughing about their craziness. Possibly Mom would be placed locally and could once in awhile come by adoptions and we'd chat about what a fabulous dog she is and how lucky the family was to get her... and yet, instead I'm writing about their death. I never imagined that day I welcomed them into my home that I would not be looking at them on the Success Stories page but instead on the Memories page. Why??? It's a loss and a pain that grips my soul. It's an unending pain because we lived it. Some nights I see them in my dreams. I see them as they were when they were all playing "king of the mountain" on their big pillow bed. I see them as they were when we first took them home and they clamored at the X-pen as we came in the room. Thankfully I don't see them as they were in the end. I don't need those reminders. I lived those....

Thankfully the story won't end there. There will be others that come into our home. We will save others and we will lose others. I know there will be pain because nothing worth doing comes without a cost. We're blessed that we've lost so few to disease issues. We'll someday have a litter again. But not right now. For now, we enjoy the company of the adults and are grateful to help save their lives.