A Loss Is A Loss

no matter what species you are. I've been thinking about this "topic" alot lately. Over the 4th of July weekend I met yet another mom who has recently suffered a loss, and she really made an impact on me though I never expected it. I know she won't mind if I share her story with you all.

DS, my mom and I went to visit the IL over the long weekend. Before we left my MIL mentioned that one of their dogs, Abby, was due to have puppies any day. When we got there a few days later sure enough, she had given birth to 9 puppies(yes, my eyes bugged out too at the thought of 9 babies) the day before. Everyone was very excited though we hadn't had a chance to get a good look at them.

Saturday morning, my FIL went out to check on the new family and much to all of our disappointment two of the precious little pups had died. Abby still wouldn't let anyone get close enough to any of the babies, let alone remove the two that had passed.

FIL, being the gentle worrier he is, decided the new mom and babies needed a slightly bigger house so that they didn't lose any more babies. So, at 7am we set to work building. A couple hours later the old houses were gone and the new house was ready to be occupied.

Abby, however, was going nowhere without ALL her babies. My FIL had managed to get the 7 surviving pups moved into the new house but Abby took hold of one of the dead pups and would NOT let it go. She'd dug a hole in one corner of her enclosure to help her keep cool and she retreated to the hole with the baby, whimpering the whole time. She put the pup down and picked it up several times, crying as she did so.

It was so sad to see her mourning her babies like that. I wanted to go in there and just sit next to her, pat her head and cry with her. But I couldn't because she doesn't really know me and I didn't want to stress her out any more than she already was.

Luckily my FIL didn't force her to give up the baby. He let her give it up on her own and retrieved the body a few hours later. Even though the bodies were gone she continued to look for the babies the whole weekend.

What struck me during this whole time was how gentle she was with the baby and how she was determined to not give up on that baby. I've heard of, and seen, grieving behavior in higher order animals (primates, elephants, etc) but I was so touched and amazed that a dog would exhibit similar grieving behaviors.

Some people might say - well she wasn't really grieving, just exhibiting a natural instinct to preserve her species. But isn't that what we all are doing when we love and nurture our children, and when we mourn the loss of a child. I know that I not only mourned the physical loss of my babies but the potential each of them would have brought to this world. I looked into Abby's eyes that morning and saw that she too mourns the loss of those puppies, even if she doesn't fully understand like we do.