Love, Community, and Lessons from the Litter

 

Join Rev. Liz on Sunday to hear lessons learned about community from having a litter of puppies.

 

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Love and Community: Lessons from the Litter

Sermon preached by the Rev. Liz Lerner Maclay, February 25, 2024

 

Many years ago now, many dogs ago now, I had my very first dog, a flat-coated retriever called Maccabee. Over the 10 years we had together everything changed in my life except for him, my constant companion who came with me every day to work. My mom called him the saintly dog. We lost him to an undiagnosed cancer and the suddenness and completeness of the loss was devastating. In the wake of his death, I realized how much I would give – almost anything – to have him back or, failing that, to have his offspring with me still to carry on his presence in some form. And while I could never get him back, having the descendants of a beloved dog is not, of course, impossible. So everything I’ve done in the 17 years since then with my dogs has been to try to accomplish that goal – to have the offspring of beloved dogs – and all of them have been very beloved – to keep some part of them going over time.

Last fall it finally happened. We had two dogs worthy of breeding – healthy, talented, loving and ready, proven and tested according to all the many standards responsibly set for the welfare of the breed and the hopes and hearts of potential owners. There’s so much more to this story, both drama and comedy but long story short, we bred them. Just two months later – it hardly seemed long enough to fully bake the little miracles – our lovely Rannoch gave birth to nine pups.

We knew when to expect them and we were ready. So ready. All the supplies were bought, or built or washed or stacked and ready to go. Whelping box for the mom and pups to inhabit for the first weeks. Towels. Wipes. Hemostat and sterile scissors to hold and cut the umbilical cords. Tiny, different colored velcro collars so we could identify the pups individually from the moment they were born. More wipes. Tums for Rannoch to keep her calcium levels up. Washable pads to line the whelping box. Replacement washable pads. Forms to track the pups’ daily weights and weekly worming schedule.  Oral probiotic syringes to dose the pups. Formula in case it was needed. A food scale to weigh them and a small Tupperware container to hold them for weighing. Warming strips and extra-large heating pads that never turn off to keep them warm. (Newborn pups can neither generate nor regulate their own heat at all for their first 3 weeks of life. If they’re not on a heating pad or snuggled against their mother, they can easily get chilled and then their digestive system and organs start to shut down. Yeah – that’s scary.) Pig rails inside the whelping box to keep Rannoch from sitting or rolling on her pups and accidentally crushing them against the sides. There was a lot to worry about – honestly, the closer we got to the big day, the more intimidating it got. Spot cleaner. Betadine solution. A laundry basket with another heating pad and towels in it to hold the pups when we were cleaning out the whelping box. So much stuff. So many eventualities to prepare for.

We waited. There was a 36-hour period during which Rannoch would whelp, based on the date of her breeding. We started taking her temperature daily about a week out, so we would be know when it dropped – the drop is a sign that whelping will start within the next 24 hours. When that happened, I called Jennifer, Rannoch’s breeder, who has been breeding flat-coated retrievers for over 30 years, and she drove from New York State to help with everything. We waited some more. Rannoch started her labor at 4:15 Monday morning October 2^nd. She panted and paced, never settling for more than a minute all morning, all afternoon, all evening. Around 9:15 that night, when she’d been in labor for 17 hours we all decided to have a quick meal in the dining room since there was no sign the puppies were coming yet, then we’d go back and wait more where the whelping box was set up. We got some food on the table and sat down to eat. Rannoch pushed to get past Tim’s leg and go under the table and as he pushed back to let her through he glanced down and said “Oh my god, we have a puppy!” There was a pup, just born, in front of Tim’s foot on the carpet under the table, still in its tiny placental sac. We jumped to our feet, Jennifer grabbed the puppy, and we rushed with Rannoch to the whelping box. While Jennifer was working to get the first puppy – a male, Mr. Dark Blue, out of the sac another male, Mr. Light Blue was born. Over the next 7 hours the rest of the litter was born – 7 females. Jennifer sat in the whelping pen with Rannoch, helping her through, instilling her own calm and strength into Rannoch as she worked her exhausted way through this protracted labor. In the end, firstborn Mr. Dark Blue was the smallest at just 9 ounces. Miss White was the lastborn and the largest at 15.1 ounces. They were all so tiny; they looked like little bats, with their eyes closed and their ears standing straight back against their small heads, not flopped over as they would become in a couple of weeks.

Jennifer stayed for a day to make sure all was well with the pups and Rannoch. They were nursing strongly, most were a little on the small side but all were vigorous and healthy. Rannoch didn’t retain any placenta – none of the things that could go wrong – and there are so many – did – and Jennifer left having given us the best launch possible.  The pups were blind and deaf – their eyes and ears wouldn’t begin to open and function for at least 2 weeks. They were incredibly little and cute with their button noses and wrinkly little muzzles and squeaky noises and tails that, within a day, were happily wagging whenever they nursed. Which was every 2 hours. Every 2 hours the puppies would nurse and I would help them get to Rannoch and latch on, and make sure all of them got a good turn and plenty of milk – it would take about an hour for them all to fill up. Then the pups would fall asleep and Rannoch would come out of the pen, have a little snack or drink or potty break outside, I would change out the washable pads, because eating always immediately prompted them to relieve themselves, and then I would put them all on heating pads to make sure none of them got a chill and go start the soiled pads in the laundry and then we would have about half an hour of downtime and then it would all start again.

For the first few days this was manageable. But then the pace began to catch up with us.  You may have noticed – there’s not a lot of downtime in this schedule. There’s no time for almost anything. Anytime I could I was working on email or doing meetings via Zoom or working on the Sunday service. Or sleeping. I would stay with Rannoch and the pups until 5 am, and then Tim would come down and take over and I would go up to bed and sleep until 11 am. Then my alarm would go off and I’d go down to share puppy duties with Tim until the evening when I’d go back on duty. This was hard – but doable. Until the second week, when Tim had to leave for a work trip. Did I say we were ready? I was wrong. We were not ready. I was not ready. He was gone for 3 days. And I was already on fumes. Almost immediately I was in over my head. And I knew it. This is where community comes in.

I just couldn’t do it – there was no way to do this for days without any break. I called Zak Mettger, a member of this church who does some dog sitting. I called Lorna Steele, a member of this church who does dog sitting and is also a trained wildlife rehabilitator.  I figured with their experience they might be up to the rigors of neonatal puppy care. I asked if I could hire them to come over and spell me so I could sleep for a few hours and bless them, they said yes. They both came and helped and charged me a pittance for the constant labor they did.

The first night Tim was away, there was a worship team meeting via Zoom. Before the meeting I went upstairs and put on a proper top and brushed my hair and put on a lot of makeup, to compensate for the lack of sleep. I thought I looked pretty good, all things considered. After the meeting was over, I have her permission to tell you that one of the worship team members, Cindy Bapties called me on the phone. She said “You look terrible.” Well, that’s my memory of it. Cindy thinks she said “You look exhausted.” Then I remember she said “I think you need help.” She thinks she said “I think you need sleep.” Eh – potato, patahto. She offered to come over and get trained in puppy care and help me out. Because Tim was scheduled to come home for 2 days and then leave again for another week and a half, I jumped at her offer. She came that weekend and learned everything, and then came to help a few times the following week, as did Zak. By this time, I had no dignity. I would answer the door in my pajamas, thank them for coming, brief them on any notes or updates for feeding schedules, medication, etc., and head up to bed. Written on my calendar from then, in capital letters, it says SLEEP in the blocks of time they came to help so nothing else would get booked during those precious hours.  Between the two of them, I had help for many of the days until Tim returned.

Now please bear in mind, a minister is supposed to have boundaries. A minister is not supposed to reverse the direction of care in substantial ways. That only changes in extreme situations. And I’ve thought before about this over my almost 30 years in ministry. I’ve wondered what would ‘break’ me such that I’d shift gears so drastically.  And I always assumed it would be a disaster. Maybe cancer. I’d anticipated that maybe if I was very, very ill with something, I might receive parishioners in my home in my pajamas. But even then, I’d still insist on being clean. And kempt. Never in a million years did I imagine that it might be a blessing, rather than a disaster, that would compel me to ease up on standards and boundaries, even temporarily and with intentionality and awareness.

And so I must say thank goodness for this church, for everyone’s willingness to meet via Zoom and let me disappear from the screen as needed for a couple of minutes to manage many small crises, and for those First U members who rolled up their sleeves and dealt hands-on with all the charm and needs and mess of nine very young puppies. I had thought having this litter would simply be my dream realized, my blessing, with Tim’s willingness and support, but it turned out it took a village to have a litter and the dreams and blessings multiplied and spread about as strongly as those little puppies who grew and began to open their eyes, and hear with their ears, and went from ounces to pounds, from days old to weeks old, from squeaking to yipping to tiny barks and growls when playing with each other.

About the same time the puppies were newly in the world, there was a fresh press of heartbreaking news in the world. Top in the news was Hamas’ horrific attack on Israel and their dreadful response to it. Receiving less attention, but no less awful were other nations’ persecution and attacks elsewhere in the world. There was more awful stuff promised/declared/threatened by our most recent ex-president. There was extreme dysfunctionality in Congress. Some awful gun violence. And more. I knew that I would need to preach on some of this, but I also saw a lot of ill-considered sound-bites ping-ponging destructively in the public sphere and knew I could not do any social media post worthy of the complexity and devastation people were experiencing. All I had was the puppies, 24/7. So I put them out there. And the response was overwhelming. So many of you saw those posts and asked me for more. If I lagged, you let me know and told me they were helping you get through your day so where was the next installment. Anything, a photo, a short video, was so welcome. Every video I posted got hundreds of views, some got almost 500 views. For a serious internet person, that’s nothing. But for me, even as the leader of church with many hundreds of members and friends, it’s unprecedented. From within and beyond this church, I got so many messages of appreciation – in the line after worship, via Facebook messages, in my church email. And not just from congregants, also from strangers, even from ministry colleagues who were feeling the burden of their vocation and struggling for balance. I never for a minute imagined that these 9 wriggly puppies would become solace for so many people in pain, but incredibly they did. It seems puppies have a community ministry all their own.

Zak became an honorary Aunt to them all, and kept helping and supporting their development right up until they left for their new homes. She still has a special place in her heart for Ness, the puppy we kept, and for the three dogs together, whose becoming a family she has witnessed every step of the way. Cindy was a self-proclaimed cat person – and even an iguana person – but not a dog person. But spending time in the house she fell in love with Rannoch and Blue, and also with the puppies who were affectionate and charming. She eventually fell for Mr. Dark Blue who was not yet spoken for, and decided it was time to lean into her husband George’s longtime wish to have a large dog in the family. So she went from caring for this smallest of the pups to loving him and making him part of their home and family, learning how to be a dog person and experiencing the gifts that dogs bring, differently from cats or even iguanas.

The last part of having the puppies was screening applicants to find them good homes, trying to match their characters and qualities with the people who wanted a puppy from this breeding. The prospect of their departure got harder the more they grew into themselves and became distinct individuals to us. Miss Purple was the most snuggly. Miss Green, the most nimble and driven. Miss Brown (formerly Miss White before we ran out of white collars) the most venturesome. Mr. Dark Blue, the sweetest. Miss Scarlett the most thoughtful. Miss Yellow, the most playful. Miss Pink, the most calm. Mr. Light Blue, one of the prettiest and also one of the most snuggly ones. Miss Orange, the most balanced in temperament. That weekend that most of them went to their new homes was very emotional. You will be unsurprised to know I did a little crying. But here was the other thing – that same weekend we put more joy into the world than I think anything ever before in my life.

I can hardly describe the overflowing and amazed bliss every single family displayed as they received their puppy, over and over again. Because I was selecting their puppy for them, based in their circumstances and hopes for their dog, most of them didn’t know who they would be getting until they arrived. We would tell them and go over the health certificates and registration papers – and then bring out their puppy, and each time, there was such joy – and even awe – on their faces as they saw their puppy for the first time, as they reached out their hands and took the pup into their arms – and hearts – and lives. Into the world, against so much that is wrong, we sent those puppies to comfort and inspire, to love and refresh, to chew and mess up and snuggle and learn their way, very small avatars of distraction and joy and solace doing their part with everything they’ve got. They know no other way to be.

So in the end, this long-sought, very personal dream of a very personal blessing was impossible to achieve alone. It took a congregation to raise the litter. But also the dream became a blessing that was communal, so much more shared than I ever expected. Even now, when the pups are spread from Maine to Alabama, and life and they are constantly changing, I am still learning how much they mean not just to their new families but to many within and beyond this church. Just yesterday I posted on Facebook that I would be preaching about this experience and my colleague Rev. Rebecca from the Newburyport UU church wrote: “Please share! (And I’ll write mine in return, for your experience has been transformative for me.)”

All our readings this morning come from the great American poet Mary Oliver’s book Dog Songs, poems devoted to dogs she has known and loved. Over and over again, she makes the point of how much they have to teach us, how much we have to gain from our connections with them. The expressive sentences of their bodies and behaviors. The steadfastness of their natures. Their thirsty, happy living.

How astounding, the ongoing echoes of meaning and goodness, the many forms and bonds of community nine puppies brought into the world. I shared this story today in the hope that we may carry away with us awareness of how much more our blessings may be shared than we think, how many ways a community can form than we expect, how very much joy may grow from our relationships with the creatures around us – how utterly intertwined it all is, we all are, how very much ubuntu, which I come back to again and  again, how very much ubuntu is not an interesting foreign concept or high-minded anti-racist principle but the actual reality of each of us, everywhere, every day – I am who I am because of who we all are. Not even just people. Puppies too – and so much more. Here and everywhere. I so hope we can see that. I so hope we can see it.  Amen.