Royal Queen Esther

Sometimes you just have a really bad, horrible, no good day, and they really just suck. That was today.

The dogs here are business. I tell myself that every single day. If I allow myself to get attached to them, it's so very hard when they need to find retirement homes after breeding. A dog should only have puppies until she's about 6 or so, and after that she deserves to retire to a home to live out the rest of her life with a family that absolutely loves her as a pet. Not that we don't love our dogs, but they're just business. It's how I cope when I need to find a good mom a new home. Because we can't keep all the girls that we retire. It's the downfall of raising dogs.

We had Cavalier King Charles Spaniels back in the experimental stages of "what dogs do we want?" Mostly because the kids chose those dogs. The girls were such pretty things, but we called them the Barbies of the dog world. While they were just gorgeous little things to look at, they had very little brains to go with the beauty. A dog without smarts will never be my favorite dog, therefore the spaniels as a breed did not appeal to me.

The girls had a litter or three each in the seven years we had them, which isn't a good track record. We re-homed the one girl last year to a family that just loves her to death. She is living a wonderful life Not Here, and we're all happy about that. The other girl we decided to keep for another year in hopes of maybe getting a last litter of puppies out of her. We had a waiting list of customers who'd bought spaniels from us and wanted a second, and it would be nice to give them a sibling for their pet if we could. But that never did happen.

We decided that our last spaniel needed a new home, and we had the perfect one waiting for her. It was a win all around, and we were just waiting for the time to be right. Except she never got that far. This morning we found our spaniel at the foot of the steps, unable to walk. I knew the prognosis almost as soon as I saw her, and the vet's confirmation of it most certainly didn't make me feel good about a correct diagnosis. A broken back is not ever a good thing.

Today, I learned what it's like to hold a beloved pet while she quietly drifts off to sleep forever. Because no matter how much I tell myself that the dogs are just business, my heart will never believe it. Tonight, I'm going to bed with swollen and puffy eyes, because the tears just will not stop flowing for the dog that deserved a far better ending and a much longer life.