Mystery of the Deadbeat Mom

The Mystery of the Deadbeat Mom

(. . . or never assume anything when you think you have a securely fenced yard.)

First some background.

In the wee hours of Friday, October 17, 2003,
a litter of five puppies were born to
Laura (CH. KinLoch's Laurel Hill) and Geordie (CH Joywood's Geordie for MagaDog, CD, ME, CGC)
Two little boys. Three little girls. All feisty, active little larval-looking things now morphing into fat little sausages.
(Breeders: Vicki Havlik and Jessica Goodman. Assistant Midwife: me)

October 21. 8:24 am. Phone rings! Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring!

"Vicki?"

"Laura's gone! Someone stole my baby!" Hysterical puts it mildly. "I let her out at about six, and she's gone!"

"You're kidding, right?" I was barely awake. This was a little hard to grasp. I'd had a restless night and had woken up at about 4 am and read for an hour before I was able to fall back sleep.

"No, she's gone. I looked everywhere. She's not barking!"

"Well, did you look in the backyard-- by the hole she was trying to dig all last week?"

Laura's ancestral memory is strong. By a direct line back to her wolfish roots, she had created a safe, warm haven under the shed. Had she had her way, she'd have deposited her puppies in this "nursery" she'd been preparing.

These activities gave Vicki little choice but to confine her to the front yard lest she carry out her scheme. And for good measure, the week before the puppies were whelped, she had shoved bricks into the trench in the backyard to ensure that the expectant mother would understand that she'd have to change her plans. Laura is nothing if not determined.

"I don't think she's there." Vicki still sounded pretty panicked. "The bricks that I put in the hole are still there."

"Well, why don't you go outside and look again?"

It was not something one would generally pay much attention to. With all those bricks, it was even unlikely. But she decided to recheck anyway.

"Omigod! I see a little brown nose!"

Vicki extracted Laura, who had probably gotten herself stuck. Perhaps one of the bricks had fallen in after her thus preventing her return to her madonna-ly duties.

"Okay-- I'll hang up. You get her cleaned up. The babies are probably starving." (Turns out the tyke-lets were doing all right, although by then perhaps they might have started feeling a little peckish.) "Call me back when you get settled."

When she called, Vicki assured me of the Mother and Child(ren) Reunion. While we remained on the phone for about an hour, the puppies, like furry parasites, suckled at Laura's well-filled breasts the whole time. Laura must have felt relieved-- literally. A devoted mother, she'd have surely returned to her babies a lot sooner had she not been detained.

So thank God it's a happy ending. But we'll never know for sure if all along Laura was plotting to redecorate and drag each puppy one by one to her earthen nest.

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