On Sunday night, we received a shocking phone call.
Our dog, Judo, has a “girlfriend” named Mona (a beautiful female German Shepherd just a month older than Judo) staying close by to our place, and who often visited Judo over the past year to play with him. She has appeared quite often in my photos section (see here and here), and was always a welcome visitor to our home.
Last month, her owner took the decision to have her mated for the first time, and chose Judo to be the sire. We were all very thrilled about it, especially when we were told that she wouldn’t let any other male dog other than Judo near her. They were given time together, and things went the way nature intended.
This was exactly a month ago, and we were all eagerly waiting to hear the good news about Mona’s confirmed pregnancy.
Sunday night we got the news that Mona had died of a cardiac arrest earlier in the day.
Worse, the post-mortem revealed that she was indeed pregnant, and (given the age of the three puppies) Judo was without question the father.
Mona wasn’t our dog, but she was very close to us, and the fact that she was, in effect, Judo’s only same-species playmate, and was going to be the mother of his offspring, made this a loss as great to us as if she was our own.
We are going to miss her terribly.