Losing Connery
I am an absolute humiliation to teenagers when we go to the
movies. I warned my two buddies in
advance: “I am going to cry.” I brought a little old lady packet of Kleenex
so I was ready; but I knew I was going to cry because the movie is about
dogs. Particularly, dogs dying. Oh, the movie isn’t billed that way. They make it seem like it is going to be a
fun, reincarnation theme of how dogs are dedicated and loyal, and keep helping
us even when we think we’ve lost them to crossing the proverbial Rainbow
Bridge. Yes the dog kept his promise to
care for “his human.” And yes there is
pathos and action and conflict and love in the movie. The guy on the radio who gives you the
heads-up on the movies that are family-friendly even gave it 3 stars (out of 4,
I think). And as I sat there coping with
the second dog death, I mean reincarnation, I had that painful pressure in my
lungs that you get from holding back Outright Sobbing and tears streaming down
my face, I thought to myself: What IDIOT
thought this was a good movie for small children?!
Having a conversation about “reincarnation and who believes
in it and who does not and why” after the movie does not justify the family
tension and dysfunctional relationships they drag you through to get
there. This could have been a LifeTime
movie, only the man was not the bad guy in this movie, and nobody gets killed
by a vengeful ex-wife. But it was a
tribute to the dog, that’s for sure. If
I was a dog, I’m not sure I’d keep running back to the same family drama.
And that leads me to the other side of dogs. I don’t talk about this on Facebook, so if
you are a loyal reader (JB and JGS) and you’ve gotten this far, you may know
what is coming. I want to talk about the
hardest part of dog breeding.
In the dog-breeding zone, I have come to wrap my entire arms
and soul around the phrase, “out-of-the-woods.”
When you are birthing puppies at home – whether it’s your first litter
or fifth – you are always waiting for the day when you yourself start breathing
differently and you look at them and think to yourself: “we are out of the woods now. They will all make it.” I long for that day, because the first few
hours, days, and weeks of the new puppy’s life is all so tentative. For the first week, the thought of leaving my
home even for an hour makes me slightly nauseous. I have those weird feelings of, “if I get in
an accident and can’t make it home, who will care for my babies? Who knows them better than I do? Who knows what they need besides me and their
dog-Momma?” That is not the description
of being out of the woods yet, is it? It
is the feeling some human mothers have when they are separated from their
babies in the early stages of their relationship. If a woman did not feel this, I would have
other questions to ask.
So this last litter, having assisted Madeline Grace with
birthing five quite solid pups, I thought we might be good and not have a lot
to worry about. She birthed on Thursday,
and I knew that if we could keep the whelping room toasty for them, and she
kept nursing them, most likely things would go well. But in the back of my mind, I was still aware
of the legendary 2-day window: on
Saturday afternoon, I noticed S. Connery moving away from the litter to the
corner instead of towards them. I thought he was just confused. I picked him up and even though the area was
about 77 degrees, he felt clammy.
A puppy’s natural temperature regulation system is not that
great the first week so you really have to keep the area where they are being
housed up to the high 70’s. I was
relentlessly monitoring the heating pad, the heating disk, and the portable
space heater. My gosh, it was warm … to
Me, who weighs scores more pounds than they do.
Let me tell you quite frankly, this heat-vigilance period is one of the
tougher factors about raising puppies. I
sleep on a futon in the room adjacent to them so I can hear every squeak and
check them every few hours. I do not
begrudge them the care; I’m just saying again, “When you’re raising dogs, that’s
ALL you’re doing is raising dogs.” They
have 100% of my attention.
So at that point I’m holding S. Connery and talking to him
and trying to buff him dry with a towel. I'm wishing his black coat and adorable tan front "boots" would be tucked happily under his mother as I’m holding him near the heater to see if that helps – near, but not too
near. Everything is an exact
science. Madeline is looking at him
differently. I try to read her and
pretend that I can’t hear her saying: “Good
luck with that one.” I promise her I am
going to get him warm. I tuck him under
her for a meal and a nap and run out the door to church and to grab Chinese
take-out for me. (I haven’t had a
balanced meal or a vegetable in days.) I
am counting on Mother Nature to kick in and for all to be well with our little
guy.
I returned home and I was seeing the same thing with
him: not quite behaving like part of the
litter. Madeline seems to have an
emotional wall up. Something in my brain
kicks into gear and I realize he is fading out, albeit slowly. She had come to terms with it, but I had
not. I call my friend who owns the daddy
dog of this litter to tell her and get some input.
“Put him in your bra.
You can save him.” I don’t know
if I was asking her or just remarking, but I responded: “He’s pooing.” She replied:
“Good. Put him in your shirt.” I wrapped him in a paper towel and tucked him
between the mountains. She walked me
through the process of getting a bit of Karo syrup on my fingertip and giving
it to him so he would get a boost. Then,
the dreaded words: “you’re going to have
to hand feed him.” The one thing I stink
at. I believe I uttered the profanity
that almost sounds like “ship.” So with
one hand I’m measuring dry puppy formula and mixing it with warm water; with
the other hand I’m holding him in place in my shirt. Periodically, I remove the paper towel he is
half-swaddled in and change it. I talk
to him. I tell him I love him and I need
him to make it. I tell him someone wants
him to make their life better. I tell
him how hard I’m trying to do this right, and please don’t inhale the
milk. I am wondering why a country with
so many bleeping engineers can’t make a decent hand feeding instrument for
puppies – why the little baby bottles that dispense it only with a tight
squeeze, or the eye droppers that splash too much in their baby faces make me, an adult woman, want to break down and cry. The pressure
in my head is enormous. I am regretting the
nap I did not take that day because in no way do I feel ready for this
endurance exercise.
I think for a minute of the first litter in my home over
seven years ago – this puppy’s grammie dog had a litter of eight and two of
them were only four and four-point-five ounces.
They were half the normal weight they should have been. Comparably, this puppy was nine ounces and
had a good start. I had sat at the same
kitchen table and grit my teeth at hand feeding and reviving the other two
twice. They finally passed and I let
them go. It was different, and yet the
same, all at once. Connery had a
fighting chance I thought.
The bag of Chinese take-out sat on the counter un-opened for
a couple of hours. My mentor next
advised me to get some special nutritional gel for puppies that helps them
perk-up. I sent one of my good friends
out to Petco and promised him he could eat Chinese with me when he gets
back. (It would also be stone cold by
then… 8 feet away from me on the counter and my brain screaming at how hungry I
am, and I am choosing that discomfort so that I can focus on saving this
baby.) He returned with the product, I
put a little on my finger tip and gave it to the puppy and try to hand-feed him
again. We began to eat Chinese food. I became aware of my friend not looking at me
while he was eating. I remarked “I
realize it’s weird to eat dinner with a woman who has a dog stuffed down her
shirt.” He smiled politely and continued
to eat. He could see the stress on my
face, and left with some sense of having helped me.
I spoke again with my mentor. She advised me that I would have to feed this
little guy every two hours into the night and probably should consider taking
him to work on Monday. My brain began to
reel. I couldn’t imagine how I could try
to sleep for a block of time and wake up to try to hand feed him again with
this tremendous stress in my head. I
closed my eyes for a moment, I was aware that he was warm – no longer
clammy. I had succeeded in warming
him. He was calm. I looked down at him with his little chin
tucked down so quietly.
He had passed without a whisper. I thought if I started to cry I would never
stop. So I just never started. He had given me a gift – he had let me warm
him. He had passed quietly without
terror or drama. Only he and God and
Mother Nature knew if just perhaps he had something more serious wrong with him
that sent him on this unwanted path. But
for a while, he was loved and he was mine and that was enough.
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