If you can’t handle the story of a beautiful puppy’s life ended too soon, don’t read any further.
A friend of mine raises German Shepherd puppies. Working dogs. All of them wonderfully trained, intelligent, and beautiful. A few months ago, we weren’t as close as we are now, but I knew one of her dogs was expecting puppies. I logged on early one morning, and found out that she’d been up all night because her dog had gone into labor. Only two pups so far all night, and the momma dog was soooo full still, and my friend was exhausted and out of diet coke! She just wanted to complain, really, so I listened, but then I offered to bring her snacks and a case of diet coke. I wanted to see the puppies. I’d never seen anything being born before. I bought some soda, a good loaf of sourdough bread, and some tasty artichoke spread, and drove the half an hour or so out of town to her home.
I walked in the front door, set my stuff down, and went to greet the straining momma dog. That dog in particular loves attention from people, and she gave me a big, beautiful smile when I stroked her and told her she was doing a good job. And, in the blink of an eye, she dropped another pup! It was positively amazing. If you’ve never seen such a thing happen, I highly recommend it. The instincts of the mother, the miniature perfection of the babies, and the interactions between my friend and the dog, easing each other through the experience, all made a great impression upon me.
Over the next twelve hours or so, the rest of the pups were born. I watched each and every one come into the world, and helped keep them dry and warm. That day, I learned about the birthing process, how to tell signs of contractions in the mother, when the labor was going well and when it wasn’t, signs of healthy puppies and signs of unhealthy puppies, and how to get a very confused newborn to nurse in competition with a wriggling pile of other confused newborns. I remember holding one baby against my chest, and noting that one tiny ear was the size of my pinky fingernail. That was about 13 weeks ago, and those tiny ears are now bigger than my entire hand.
Impossible to tell which of the black and tan babies this was, on the day it was born.
Over the intervening months, I saw the babies about every other week. I watched them grow. I saw them go from tiny things that could barely crawl, to toddling around blindly because their eyes hadn’t matured yet, to learning to see and follow and run. In a week they would go from helpless infants to spunky toddler pups who would chew on my sock or the hem of my skirt. And I swear, they just got cuter and cuter.
After the first couple of weeks, they also started to develop distinct personalities. Faust was bright and energetic, but genuinely wanted to please people. Freya was a fuzzball (my friend thought she might turn out to be a longcoat, but she ended up being just extra fuzzy). There were three sables who were sold early on, and I don’t remember their names, but they were a large, energetic trio, always together (which was darn cute, since they matched). The other four were black and tan (what you would traditionally think of as a german shepherd color, black bodies with tan faces and paws). Freya, Faust, Felon, and Falcon. Felon was always my favorite. She was the one who was born right as I walked in the door, and had a special place in my heart from then on. Falcon, though, was my friend’s favorite. She loved that puppy. She always intended to keep one female black and tan to continue her line, and it was pretty clear she wanted Falcon. They got along so well. I remember sitting on the floor with her and the puppies running around, but Falcon just wanted to get in her lap and lick her chin, and she would rub on the pup and exclaim “aaah, I can’t help it, I just love this puppy!” That’s the nice thing about puppies… it won’t emotionally traumatize them if you pick a favorite!
After the three sables were sold off early, I would focus on the black and tans when I came over. It was great when they got old enough to run around in the fields with the adult dogs. It was like a big, cuddly wolf pack. Except every now and then the big wolves would run up to you with a ball to throw (not that I would, because it wasn’t safe around the pups), and one of the little wolves would sit on your feet and put their paws on your legs to be picked up. Usually when it was too cold for the little wolves, would that happen. My friend had said that the pups maxed out on cuteness right around the time their ears started to stick up, but before they were really starting to act like adults. However, I thought that they were pretty darn cute at this stage (10-12 weeks) too. They really looked like German Shepherds, only midgitized, with stumpy legs and bodies, but huge heads and paws and tails.
The last time I was there, my friend wanted to focus on socializing the puppies and beginning to train them basic commands. They were getting past the baby stage, so people who would buy them then would want them to be ready to work. So, I would go out to the kennels and bring in one pup at a time. Felon, living up to her name, wouldn’t follow me back to the house. She really really wanted to play with one of the adults, but it wasn’t time for that! So I put her back, and got Falcon out of the kennel.
But ohhh, Falcon. She wouldn’t follow me. Well, veeeeeery slowly. I was afraid that she would do as Felon had, and want to play with the riled-up adults. No, she didn’t seem interested in that, or anything, really. I called to her a bunch of times, but she kept sitting down on the walk. I would stop and call to her, and she’d catch up, and follow me for a while, but then stop and sit down again. Finally, we got back to the house. She didn’t get any better. Soon after that, she vomited, and we took her back to the kennels. I was worried about her, but it was a watch and wait situation, so I socialized the other puppies. The next day, she wasn’t back to normal, but she was quite a bit better, so I didn’t worry too much. My friend didn’t seem worried either. Even now, there’s really no way to know if that was in any way related to what happened. It just sticks in my mind, because the last time I saw her she really wasn’t herself. This was last Saturday.
Today, I message my friend, and she tells me that she had to drive Falcon to a metropolitan area about an hour away for emergency surgery. Oh god. It bowled me over. It’s not like there aren’t vets here. I knew it had to be serious. She said that it was very bad, and Falcon had about a 50% chance. I spent a couple of hours trying to distract myself.
Later on, my friend messaged me back and said that Falcon had come out of surgery well, her temperature was back to normal, and she was sleeping comfortably. It sounded like her body was starting to bounce back. I was so relieved, that I started poring through the most recent batch of pictures. They are such beautiful babies, so strong and with so much potential. And I remember how they looked and smelled and sounded and acted when their ears were the size of my pinky fingernail.
About a half hour ago, my friend messaged me again with just a 
. Poor little Falcon died suddenly. She just started vomiting and her temperature shot up again and she died. My friend raises these dogs as a hobby and to make money, but she spent a lot of money on an emergency operation knowing that afterwards she couldn’t in good conscience sell the puppy, in case the condition recurred. She wanted Falcon to live. I wanted Falcon to live. I wanted to see each one of these puppies grow to adulthood and get pictures and stories from when they won prizes for their German Shepherd competitions, and hear about how great they were at biting the heck out of intruders as they are trained to do, and hear about how their personalities developed into adulthood from the seeds of personality I saw developing in them as babies. And now I’ll never know what a great dog Falcon could’ve been. But she was always a great puppy.
R.I.P. Falcon.