12/11/2025
What they dont see.
They don’t see the nights.
The floor slept on beside a whelping box, the clock watched until dawn, the breath held between contractions.
They don’t see the hands that never shake, even while the heart is breaking.
They see puppies.
They don’t see the ones that slipped into silence before ever opening their eyes.
The tiny bodies wrapped in warm towels.
The whispered apologies.
The names given only in a heart.
They don’t see the mothers — brave, tired, aching — who gave everything they had.
Some who licked life into their babies.
Some who looked to us when their strength ran out.
Some who never rose again.
They don’t see the tests, the planning, the waiting, the money spent, the charts, the blood-work, the careful choices made out of love, not profit.
They don’t see the fear when labor stalls.
The shaking hands in a sterile room.
The quiet sobs in a parking lot at midnight.
They see litters.
They see wagging tails.
They see photos.
But we see what was lost. What could have been.
We carry them quietly —
the ones who didn’t breathe,
the mothers who never came home,
the dreams that ended in silence.
And still… we go back to the whelping box.
Not because we are careless.
Not because we don’t know the risk.
But because we love them enough to keep trying to give them the best chance at life.
This is not easy.
This is not casual.
This is not for money.
It is for the ones who lived.
And for the ones who didn’t, but were loved anyway.
~N. DUGAN~