Honey has babies!
It was a wild ride getting them here. The night before they were born, she started nesting, and decided she did not like the whelping box. Every time we let her out of our sight, she started to dig, including through a wall.
That girl wanted to build a den.
Once we got her settled, she went right to work, and calmly had 8 pups in under 3 hours.
I sat up with her a few more hours, then went to bed.
(There were lots of ups and downs all night, letting her out, feeding her, making sure pups were warm.)
The next morning, we discovered a bonus puppy who came sometime after midnight and I didn’t even notice.
5 girls, 4 boys.
The adventure reminded me of her first litter, when she actually did dig a den to give birth in. Ryan and I had to hunt for cold, wet, pups in the dark with a flashlight.
You can see the story HERE.
When the two dogs went into heat, I wasn’t sure if we should breed them this year. But the thought of fluffy puppies to snuggle was too hard to resist. After losing Ryan, I thought that would be just what I needed to start healing my heart.
In the past, Honey has had a false pregnancy, so I doubled down and had both dogs bred- just in case.
Now, I had two very pregnant dogs, and was ready for all that healing to start as soon as I saw the first baby.
But hearts don’t recovery that simply, do they?
And with Honey’s determination to dig her own nest, it all brought back memories of my son, by my side in the rain, hunting for little puppies. I felt his loss even more, if that is possible. 
Over the next couple of months, I’ll miss him by me as they are fed from a spoon (he laughed at how spoiled they were) and I’ll miss him when I watch our favorite shows with a lap full of pups, knowing he always loved holding the little ones with me in front of the TV and should’ve been there with an armload himself.
But as I tell Sugarwings when she is sad about her uncle, losing a loved one means you need to love the ones around you even more.
Death teaches us how quickly we can lose someone, and we should learn from that, and treasure our time with family.
I know how quickly these next couple of months will go by. In a flash, the puppies will leave to go be loved by others. But for now, I am drying my tears and treasuring these moments with them.
My heart will never heal.
But there is always room in its pieces for love and for puppies.
No Karla, your heart will never heal. But oh the sweet memories. Thank you for sharing yours with me.
What a wonderful litter of puppies! And of course memories. I guess one way to look at it is that, even though gone now, you birthed someone who became a wonderful, sensitive and caring person. That you have those memories of him with other puppies is a gift, one you can revisit at any time – through tears or laughter. Hang in there, Karla. Things sometimes get harder before they get a bit easier.
We never heal from the death of our children o r of a husband. I have lost both.
Others go on with their life, sometimes remembering our loss and sometimes they forget.
Unless we are lucky enough to have a couple of friends who walk with us, we are alone. Until others experience this broken brain and heart we do whatever gives us a moment of peace.
Enjoy the puppies. ❤️