| Timberdoodle: FIELDS OF GOLD Page 2 of 3 |
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| Continuedontinued... May 26, 2007 As I waited with Wish, I was reminded of Timber the previous year. His pen abutted hers and when the drapes went up, he was very curious and would lay so that his nose barely lifted the curtain up to see what was going on. I had taken a picture of Timber standing outside looking down at the basket of Wish pups. This picture was pinned inside of her whelping area this year, looking down upon her as she labored with his pups. Sounds silly I know, but there was nothing silly about the intensity of this whole situation. Wish decided to go outside and relieve herself at night in her outside pen. Thinking she was taking too long, I shone the flashlight out to discover her bent over a small object. When I called her back to me, she picked the object up gently in her mouth, came back in; she proudly presented a completely cleaned up, beautiful liver and white female pup at my feet. (She is a natural retriever afterall!) I gently picked "Bridget" up, dried her with a warm towel, weighed her under Wish's careful eye, and placed her in the whelping box under the infra-red heat lamp. (The potential owners of this little girl puppy lived in Ohio had been waiting over a year for her arrival!) As Wish snuggled with her newest 'treasure', my eyes softly filled with tears: The emotion of seeing the living, breathing evidence of Timbers life once again overwhelmed me. Wish labored on and off throughout the night, eventually producing the first of two males. He took my breath away, nearly all white except for perfect markings on his little head. John and I had joked often about how the white mask on Timbers face had not been fully painted on, nor were the liver markings on his butt ever completed. This little male more than made up for that! We were so delighted to see, this little boy puppy had a little 'doodle' of a mark of liver, on his rear near his tail - these were touches that could only testify of Timberdoodle! Wish lovingly and gently tended to the pup that was to be named "Scooby". (This particular doodly pup - in the first few days of his life, did very incredible things to indicate he was to stay with us. Once again, sounds silly I know! But how does one explain a 3 day old pup, crawling across the whelping box independently, to snuggle into a cupped hand that just happened to be resting there, and then crawl back to it's mother to nurse? You don't explain it. You feel it. You know it. You accept that sometimes mysterious, aweseome things do happen and you have to have the heart to believe. We choose to believe!) Wish produced "Maggie" a tri-color female (her second ever!). Amazingly, the couple who were waiting for this pup were actually hoping for a tri-color Brittany! And then, still later were were blessed with the arrival of another handsome nearly all white male who we called "Forrest". Wish gave birth to 4 little doodle pups. She tended to her pups then took a well deserved nap. I was so weary and emotionally drained but had such a deep sense of peace about me. So bittersweet was the birth of this litter. As I emerged from the kennel at 6 a.m. on that warm May morning, the sky was painted with the most heavenly colors. Walking up over the back lawn towards the house, a beautiful bald eagle suddenly appeared high in the sky. The eagle slowly, gracefully hovered and circled directly overhead. Then, he took one swoop down towards me, turned back and soaring up towards heaven, the eagle disappeared. Later that morning, after I had taken a short nap with one eye shut and one eye open on the closed circuit monitor, I went back down to check on Wish and her pups. As I approached our kennel a yellow monarch butterfly flew up from down in the woods. I stood to watch it. The graceful butterfly fluttered in and out among each of the kennel runs; settling briefly for just a moment near the run that was often used by Timber. Then it too flew off. Continue... |
| Many years have passed since those summer days, among the fields of barley, See the children run, as the sun goes down, as you lie in fields of gold. I never made promises lightly, there are some that I've broken But I swear in the days to come we will walk in field of gold... |
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