08/03/2025
I’m not sure how to start this, I don’t want to write this.. But we lost our sweetest and best girl Mila, daughter of the grand master Takota.
Let me take you back what feels like not so long ago. I was already training dogs for a couple of years and recently purchased what’s now our currently property. I had the opportunity to breed Takota and continue his legacy so I did. The training facility just finished getting built and I had arranged for the puppies to be here for the last 4 weeks. Those puppies were the first dogs to ever stay/board in that facility. I had Lina the mother of Mila obviously here and to watch her with those puppies I will never forget. I’ll never forget how gentle she was but to see her be as firm as she needed to be with those pups. The hardest decision at that time in our life was to choose which puppy we would keep. There was 12 puppies to choose from and color coordinated to tell them apart. I did lots of puppy temperament testing with them and never could choose which dog or response was that I wanted. There was some deciding factors that ended up us choosing this picture perfect white female. When we would do a “hot lap” with those puppies every single one would non stop follow us. We could go anywhere and all of those puppies would follow us, like they were already trained. We started to realize one dog kept leaving the pack first. The only one with the ears up already so it was easy to tell, it was that white collard female. I knew German Shepherds are prone to separation anxiety from my experience with Kota, her ease and willingness of being able to leave the pack intrigued me. What solidify the decision for me was Kota. He was curious about the puppies but not friendly I would say. When we brought that white collard puppy by him he responded the same, however she did not. When he grumbled and avoided that white collard puppy did not. She was not disrespectful but did not yield to Kota. She just joyfully followed closely to him and kept the pressure on. Then a beautiful moment later Kota went to a happy go lucky state. That little puppy made this strong front of the pack sire to the litter yield. She did it with love she did it with kisses when he didn’t want them. Then and there we decided this must be the one.
Once we decided on which dog we will keep we had to decide on a name. The dogs bloodline was Czechoslovakian so we ended up finding the name Mila. The name meant “people’s love”. That dog truly lived up to that name, she loved everyone. She did not have a mean bone in her body nor did she have a fearful one. She was the only dog that Kota would surrender to.
I unfortunately regret how much time I spent with Mila when she was a puppy. I always chose her dad and I wanted Carly to have a similar bond i had with Kota and they truly did. Even though i had a un healthy relationship with Kota. I knew or thought when his time would come I may not be able to survive. So I always kept a healthier limitation in my relationship with Mila. Looking back like everyone does I know what I would do differently. I’m aware I shouldn’t do this and I’m giving myself grace with the fact of.
As Mila matured and time went on I couldn’t help but fall more and more in love with this dog. She was the sweetest, yet fierce and protective. She followed carly everywhere she went, even when sleeping if carly switched sides of the bed, mila moved over to the otherside to be closer. Emotionally speaking it was Kotas daughter and she was Litteraly 50% of him. Not many people have the opportunity to have one of there dogs puppies. Not many could choose any puppy that they wanted in front of them. It was all just such a work of fate or destiny.
Often god or fate or destiny bring things in your life that are not wanted or expected. The worst things happen when you don’t expect them to is my experience in life. I lost my best boy Takota (Kota) June 22 2024 a day after his birthday. February 16 2025 we got the worst news about our girl Mila. We found out that she had cancer and that it had metastasized in her stomach and that she was bleeding from them internally. I was told we should put her down that she was clinical. We were absolutely devastated and completely crushed. I honestly don’t have the words for the pain my wife and I felt. Like someone shot us in our souls right past and through our hearts. The only thing that might be similar is to be being suffocated.
Once we got the news we had decisions to make and this time Mila appeared slightly off but 99% with it. All she wanted to do was to leave the hospital she wanted out of that place, which is not like her at all. We were informed that we could euthanize her at home and that we had 6 hours for her to live.
The horrible and pain stacking start to our journey to basically end my dogs life has started. My veterinarian was scheduled to come the house at 6pm to put her to sleep, we were shaking in fear. We got home and didn’t know what to do and my very good friend and veterinarian informed us we don’t have to make a decision tonight. She was not in pain we managed the bleeding and knew all she wanted was to be with us. We were so relieved and so grateful we got to spend one more night with her. Carly and i made a pact and promised each other we wouldn’t let her suffer. We didn’t know exactly what that looked like though.
We started to google and figure out different medicines to help her fight this fu***ng horrible thing called cancer. We knew it was a hail Mary and desperation and hope started to creep in.
I am very grateful for the extra time I got to spend with Mila, it was 456 hours compared to 12. It sounds like so much but we feel so robbed of years of life. We had plans for Kota to be around our children and he passed. A couple months after he passed Carly and I got the best news we have received, that Carly’s pregnant! To then find out we were having a boy carly and I looked at each other and felt Kota. We know Kota had everything to do with this. I was instantly happy which followed immediate sadness. Sadness that he wasn’t going to be here and he just missed this experience ripped me in half.
we were ok and were at peace with this scenario because we had his daughter Mila. We always called Mila, mother Mila. The plans carly and I had with her and our child I won’t even mention, we just knew she would be the very best around our child. Then bring us back to reality, our girl Mila wasn’t going to make this experience in the physical realm.
Mila continued to fight for 19 days after her horrible prognosis. Carly and I had to give her medicine every 12 hours to make sure the bleeding was being suppressed. To say we didn’t sleep much the past 19 days is an understatement. People will reference having a child and having to take care of it during the night. This was not the same but I imagine the similarities. I promise you Carly and I will feel allot different when we have to change a diaper, feed, or rock back to sleep. I imagine the similarity is waking up in a panic to see if the baby is still alive. That’s what we did for 18 days, we woke up 100s of times to see if she was ok and still breathing.
We rescheduled euthanasia 4x.. every time we thought it was time she would rebound. She would want to eat again she would want to play want to be with us. However every time she had an event it would set a new lower bar of life for her even if she rebounded. The bar of life for her was dwindling. Our time with her was growing short and we were overly aware of it. We have cried so much these past 3 weeks. We also sat with so much gratitude and love with her for those 19 days. Until the day she told us that we were strong enough and she was weak enough that it was time. You shouldn’t keep a dog alive if it doesn’t have any joy. Unfortunately when she passed she couldn’t move, she didn’t want to eat, she couldn’t get up to p*e. She just wanted to be by us and had so much joy of it. Some would say I kept her alive too long and sometimes selfishly I feel I could have kept her longer. We would never had enough time with her or any of my dogs.
This is some of what I have learned from my heart aches this past 255 days. That with our beautiful existence on this earth must come suffering.. through suffering is the only way to find salvation. Salvation is the act of being saved from harm, danger, or sin. It can also refer to the deliverance of the soul from evil and its consequences.
I know that a dogs life outweighs the dogs death. I am always learning more about god and his plans. I’m not sure sometimes why things happen the way the happen I will just tell you that it happens. I don’t have much more to say.. I just love my wife so much and she means the world to me. I’d die for my wife and I wish I could take away her pain. I also know that how much pain something causes is a measurement of how much you loved something. That just means carly and I are in for a rough road. I know grief comes in waves and that being sad about something is easy to do. The hard thing to do but we must do is to keep on going forward. We have a beautiful life inside my wife that deserves to have a peaceful place to grow. I’m not sure how to fix that though right now. I am not sure how to fix anything right now. We’re just trying to eat food and drink water and sleep without crying. If anyone prays or wants to send good energy or light, please send it all to my wife and our baby. God sp*ed to all and I know my dogs are waiting for me. Know this isn’t good bye but see you later. I know my son will have the very best guardian angels, they were the most protective dogs. Please protect our child Kota & Mila.
