On the morning of March 28, 2005, the day after Pico passed away, something very odd happened. I was backing out of the driveway to go off to work and I happened to catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye. The movement didn't seem to me to be something normal, so I pulled back into the driveway and went out onto the two story deck on the back of the house to see if I could see what it was that had caught my eye. My property backs up to two schools, one of which is slightly elevated from the level of my property. There on the crest of the little hill behind the school was a coyote standing looking back toward my house. It seemed that he was looking straight at me. As I stood there and looked at the coyote, I sensed intense sadness. Some might say that it was just because I had lost Pico the night before. I don't think that was it, though. I was still feeling kind of numb about what had happened with Pico. The coyote and I stood there and looked at each other for a few seconds. Then he turned and trotted off and again, perhaps my mind was playing tricks on me, but it seemed to me that the coyote's movement and mannerisms as it trotted away exactly duplicated Pico's actions when he was told to do something he didn't understand. Prior to that day, I had never seen a coyote in my neighborhood. There just wasn't really any place for them to be since my house is in the middle of suburban Indianapolis. After that experience, I did some research and I talked to some people. Through the course of conversations and research, I learned that some Indian tribes believe that the coyote is a household guardian. Pico had always tried to be my little guardian. Whenever I would go off to a dog show by myself, I always took Pico with me. Some even suggested that Pico was trying to tell me that he would never leave me and that he would always watch over me. I have not seen a coyote in my neighborhood since then.
The day that I saw the coyote was the day that Boo came in season. I had always wanted to breed Pico to Boo and decided to go ahead and do it since I had had both dogs Optigen tested and the Optigen ratings verified that it was okay to do the breeding. (I had previously collected from Pico since he was a Pattern A (clear) dog.) So, I did the breeding and on June 4, 2005 Boo had a litter of 5 puppies - 2 males and 3 females. As the puppies began to develop, there was one puppy in the litter that seemed to have some of his daddy's traits. His name was Little Joe because he was the smallest puppy in the litter. He was the one that I thought that I was going to keep to replace his daddy.
When the puppies were about 2 weeks old, their mom Boo started sniffling a little bit. I didn't think too much of it because it wasn't really all that noticeable and she didn't seem to be really bothered by it. A few days later, though, a couple of the puppies started coughing/sneezing/sniffling. So, I called the vet to get some antibiotics for both Boo and the puppies. The vet told me to put Boo on the antibiotics, but wait for a few days before putting the puppies on anything since giving antibiotics to her might help them. The next day, Little Joe was coughing and sneezing terribly. I called the vet and got an appointment to take him in later that day. That morning I started him and the other puppies on the antibiotic because I felt that they needed it. The vet examined Little Joe, listened to his heart and lungs and said that there was nothing wrong with him other than that his nose was a little stuffed up. He said that I should just get some nose drops for him and he would be fine. A couple hours later I decided to take him to the emergency vet because I wanted a second opinion. It just seemed like more than a stuffy nose to me. The emergency vet examined him, took his temperature, said it was a bit abnormal for a puppy, and then listened to his heart and lungs. When he listened to Little Joe's heart and lungs, he said there was something wrong. He said he could have a heart murmur or something else. He wanted to do an x-ray. When he did the x-ray, he saw that Little Joe's lungs were filled with fluid. He had pneumonia. I brought his littermates in to be x-rayed and a couple of them had fluid in their lungs, too. None of them were quite as bad as Little Joe, though. The emergency vet judged Little Joe to be in severe respiratory distress and felt that he needed to be on oxygen. So, he spent that night at the emergency clinic and the next day at a regular vet's office on oxygen because neither was open 24 hours. When I went to pick Little Joe up to transport him to the emergency vet's office, they took him out of the oxygen that he was in and he crashed. They were unable to revive him. I had lost my little boy again, it seemed.
I don't have many pictures of Little Joe because he and his littermates were just starting to get to the point where they were moving around a bit more and becoming more independent.
