Lessons From Bravo........New Puppies

Bravo over the course of his life supervised many puppy delivery's.  From standard normal delivery's to the rush to the vet at 3 AM delivery's.  Alway's following me from room to room, alway's laying on the couch and peeking into the room, always waiting on the moment he could sneak in to the whelping room...either to look for food or to sniff the puppies.  Always at the first yelp of a new born puppy he would cock his head and look at me.  To me it always seemed as if he was identifying their voice and smell.

Yesterday 7 new puppies arrived into this world. All so far happy and healthy although number 7 took her sweet time arriving.   By canine labor standard it was a long day.......10 hours of labor.  First birth was at 1 pm and the last at 11 pm.

Over the last 2 years, my sister passed away, my mom passed away, and 2 good friends passed away and now Bravo. Every single time this has happened we were either expecting new puppies soon or had new puppies on ground.  Considering I generally only have 3 litters a year...what the heck?  Does that mean new birth equals death? Or does that mean death equals new birth? Is it chance? Is it me? I have to do math all day every day with T1 diabetes...so I don't want to think about it to hard...but given that is a little over 800 days to play with ....anyhow you can see where I am heading.

Dead serious, every time I have been expecting a new litter over the last 2 years a MAJOR  life event has taken place. Major....knock me to the ground, stomp on my heart kinda major.  Every stinking time I keep asking myself  "WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING?  If this many things are going so wrong every time.....why don't you just quit?  Maybe it isn't meant to be.  Maybe this is a message saying stop.  There are others that can do this DAD thing.  It would be easier you know...not having to deal with the million questions about diabetic alert dogs and dog training while your heart is being ripped out of your chest. KC sometimes you are NUTS...obsessed over this dog thing.  Who in their right mind would want to work so darn hard to learn to communicate with a dog?  Who in their right mind would want to spend this many hours trying to help dogs communicate back?"

Then the other side....yesterday while helping deliver a pup my BG dropped to 62.  Normally there would have been a wise old face staring HARD at me to make the point that there was a problem.  Not yesterday.  Yesterday, I somehow ignored the howls from the other room and stayed focused on the issue at hand.  Yesterday it was a random check that caught that 62 it wasn't Bravo and it wasn't the CGM it said 112.  Yesterday I again understood how important these dogs and others like them truly are.

Message from Bravo....these diabetic alert dogs are important.  You can't beat a dog's nose! We are so unworthy of their loyal devotion and love and yet they keep on giving it to us.  They walk with us through EVERY EVENT in our life...protecting us from not just bad BG's but also life's hardships.  Just a dog???????  I don't think so...more like angels!