A Mother’s Love?
Coming home this morning after call, I had made plans to meet our neighbor, friend, and fellow golden lover, Ken Muccino, at the high school. He left his twelve year old golden, Holly, at home and brought his almost one year old, Rosie. She is a littermate of our Lucy, and one of our Emma’s daughters. Emma is our five and a half year old, and the super alpha of the bunch. Despite our vigilence, she nipped Holly the first chance she had and actually drew a little blood.
Both Ken and I marveled that when you see how protective a mother is of her new litter, it is amazing that once the pups are a few months old, all recognition of their former young seems to vanish. I guess the instincts are put there to insure survival of the newborn, but once everyone is grown, as adults they all compete in the wild for a limited amount of resources, and so survival of the fittest becomes the law of the land.
As humans we have our multi generational family structure, and it is definitely a little sad to see a mom not recognize the animal she has given birth to!
Anyway, Rosie seemed to have fun with the other dogs despite the little nip. She has grown into a beautiful young lady. She was the smallest of the three females in Emma’s last litter. As you can see from the early and more recent photos below with Ken, she has certainly caught up in size.
Hopefully, with more runs together, Emma will become a little more friendly towards Rosie. Then Ken and I can relax, and share some good conversation on the high school fields while the girls romp.