Sad day...

Today, after waving goodbye to my dad after his visit, I looked around for our puffy snowball of a puppy. I called for Minnie to no avail. She was growing fast and had outgrown our 3 year old Blue Heeler. Wondering what happened to her, I went inside to get a coat and shoes instead of slippers, then came back out to look for her. I called and called. I walked the entire yard looking. She's such a docile thing that you can call for a while and she'll take her time waking up, stretching, and coming out from under the porch, especially on such a damp, cold day. This time she didn't come. I started to get worried. We've had her for about 2 months now, always outside, and she's never left the yard. I was fairly certain she didn't run away. I started to wonder if someone saw how sweet she was and decided to steal her. I went inside and started making up a "missing puppy" sign to post by the street and sent the 3 older boys out to look in the meantime. Seth and Noah came in with no luck, but a while later, Caleb peeked in the door and said in a disbelieving tone, "I found her".

"Really? Where was she?" I was wondering what took so long for her to come and where she had gone. "She's out behind the pine tree in the field. She's dead."

What?? My heart sank. Caleb took me out to see her, and sure enough. There was our sweet, white, wet puppy. After Paul got home, he went out to see exactly what happened, and found that her back was broken. The only thing we can figure is that the coyote(s) killed her and drug her back behind the tree. Coyotes... the reason we got such a big dog in the first place. I hate those things. A year later and the tables would've been turned. I cried, and my kids comforted me. In my heart I know that it's no good to get attached to farm animals and, against my better judgement and to my dismay, my kids realize that.