Tribute to Captain

We lost one of our puppies the other day. He showed up when he was but 3 weeks old. Found in a box with his sister. Covered in fleas, half starved, and frightened. The boys picked them up and brought them home. They knew we couldn't turn out pups.

 This is Captain

This is Layla

They were nursed back to health by my sister, who kept vigil over them for the first week we had them feeding them by bottle every 4 hours.

They grew and grew and decided they had to have a mother figure so they adopted Dixie, who is one of the other puppies that was dumped here down by the river with her sister who we call Lucy.

They of course are older, as they came to live with us when they were 8 weeks old about 2 months ago.

So as they grew Layla showed signs of being an explorer and Captain more of a homebody. He pretty much just stayed by the barn and play with Lucy.

One day Captain disappeared and the kids went out and found him exploring by himself about a mile from the house in the back woods. Alone and scared and totally confused ,because he had never followed us out there before, was rescued and brought home to safety. Time went on and he was once again content to stay near the barn and play happily with other dogs. Still not venturing out with us. Until one day...He followed us all out to the home site while we were working. When it was time to come back up, he was nowhere to be found. The kids looked around, but it was dinner time and they were hungry and tired and decided to come up to eat and come back down to look afterwards. Unfortunately a HUGE storm blew in and they couldn't go out in the rain and now encroaching dark, so we retired for the night to reestablish a search party in the a.m.  The next day dawned still storming, but at least light, so the kids donned rain gear and set out in search parties. They looked for several hours, following trails of markings and poop. When finally they came upon a small pile of puppy poop and a little farther intense scratchings and finally to a pile of entrails. Alas Captain is no more. Eaten in the wild woods by a beast-probably actually just a coyote-but never-the-less, it is a loss. The children said their prayers for his arrival into heaven, as they always do when we lose a part of the clan. He will be greatly(words of my sister) missed. He was a beautiful and fun loving part of God's world and we were blessed to pet him for awhile.

Happy playing in the heaven! Say Hi to Jesus for us!