JOY/PAIN-PAIN/JOY

Whitney’s puppies are five weeks old today.  They have found their voices and they have found their tails! They are still not interested in food which is not surprising because Whitney is still very motherly towards them.  She amazes me because if anything she is slightly heavier than usual.  She has not lost condition at all and she is eating around about six times more than she normally would.

It goes without saying of course that the puppies are very cute. If I get into the pen and sit on the floor, they start nibbling my toes and pulling at my pyjamas and they make little growly barking noises.  I always find it highly amusing to see something that weighs only a couple of pounds standing there being all macho.

If I have not already remarked so, this is the best litter I have ever had. The father of this litter is not a dog I would even have thought to use even though he comes from a very good quality line.  It just was not within my radar.  Or so I thought! When Whitney  delayed her season, thereby making it convenient to breed her, I had no idea who I would breed her to. Then I awoke one morning and I just knew which dog to breed her to.  I felt it strongly and it has paid off.  I am glad that I was able to go with my feeling and did not allow my head to talk me out of it.

Surprisingly, the three girls are more or less clones of Whitney.  I do not mean because they are black.  I mean they physically look like her.  The boys are entirely different from the girls and from each other.  One of them I would think is going to look like his father.  The father’s owner will better be able to tell me that.  With regard to Whitney, this means that from a breeding point of view she is also very good which often is not the case with Champion stock.  I feel very fortunate.

This week has been very difficult because I have had severe pain which has kept me awake for the last three nights. The pain has been worse when laying in bed as it centres around my pelvis.  I have had to take more painkiller than usual and it was not until about 4 AM this morning that the pain finally abated.

On the good side, I have done a lot of dyeing.  I find that when I dye, my mind is so engrossed in what I am creating that I am able to distract myself enough from the pain.  I had a great deal of pleasure in working with just a few colours but mixing a bit of this and a bit of that to get many other colours.  As a result I have produced truly unique colours and un-repeatable dyed hanks.  I have also sold very well this week including half of these new dyes.

I have also been shown much kindness this week, especially by some ladies on the knitting machines list.  In the early hours of the morning when I was very tired and in pain I read an e-mail which upset me and I wrote a very pointed response.  Later I realised that had I not been in severe pain and so tired I would  have ignored the e-mail or not interpreted it the way that I did.  Far from getting snotty responses I got nothing but kind responses.  They understood I was not my usual cheerful self.  This makes me feel warm.

The early hours of a sleepless night do not normally produce ones finest thinking and definitely not if exacerbated by pain. My thoughts started to frighten and depress me because I began to seriously wonder if I was going to be able to carry on showing my dogs but I know that I would have gone to show even with this pain.  When I start to think negatively I just remind myself of how appalling my life used to be and this soon has me back on track and being grateful for the life I have today.