This past week was so unexpected and yet it wasn’t unexpected. Holy Spirit had began to reveal the loss that was to come. I resisted that revelation with a ‘No’, feeling that what was to transpire was unbearable. I cried out ‘NO’! this can not be and yet it was to be. Our journey is in the hands of our Lord Jesus. He was preparing me for the soon to come heart break. He is faithful to His children. And He was preparing me to open my heart to new joy.

In February of 2023, in GCSSM class, my prophetic words for one of my Joy Group friends was specifically received from our Lord with my Golden Doodles in mind. This is a good representation of my golden doodle dog companions and friends. Here was the word for my friend – based over the characteristics of my pet – I have two golden doodles. They are smart and always eager to learn and very friendly. I see these same characteristics in you. They are different however, Ms. Lily is always bubbling over and so very energetic. And I feel that you have that same kind of energy and bubbling overness in your prophetic dance and other ministries. And I also see in you the calmness and steadfastness that my other golden doodle, Mr Dan has. I feel that you have a calmness and steadfastness to our Lord in the directions and desires that He has placed in your heart.

 The word that I had given about my Golden Doodles was just so true for how my dog companions are to me. Ms. Lily, the energizer bunny, ready to run and play. Dan, my calm strength.  They were always with me and coming with me where ever I journeyed. They especially loved to hike together in the mountains. There, when I hooked them together as a team, Dan was the lead dog, the guide, the strength to keep us moving forward on the path. I could count on him to be there for us. 

I had been feeling inside of myself for several months to increase the size of our Golden Doodle family but with hesitation to increasing our doodle family to three. I believe that Holy Spirit was encouraging me to look at the Goldendoodle pups. I did look at the kennel where I had gotten my previous doodles to see what pups might be available. There had been two specific pups that I was watching and talking with our Lord about. I had kept saying that if they were left after I returned home in October that I would then reach out. But, then I thought, no, I will wait until after Christmas because that is when people tend to bring pups into their family, thus leaving the pups to find their forever family.

Finally, on January 17th of this year, I did reach out to Marie from Berlin Puppy’s to find out about four of her pups for sale. I sent her an email which was, for me, a passive way of doing what our Lord had asked of me, but yet being obedient to what I was hearing from Him. After quite some time, I did not hear back from Marie.

I remember hopping into my jeep after I wrote to Marie and thinking that the reason that our Lord had put getting another puppy on my mind was because something seriously wrong was going to happen to either Dan or Lily. And I just said ‘No’. I am not going to get another puppy because I don’t want to lose either of my doodle family. They are my companions and friends.

Last weekend, I went on a hike, with Mr. Dan and Ms. Lily, specifically to spend time worshipping our Lord. Also, I wanted to work on using my GoPro to record our journey and my worship time with our Lord. We enjoyed our hike and we had a wonderful time in the mountains with our Lord. Please take the time to watch this video.

How can I write the next portion? Thru much difficulty and sadness I shall write. I woke up on the following Monday morning after our hike to get ready for my day. I began my day with reading God’s Word and talking with Him. During my devotion time, the child gate which leans against the bedroom door was knocked over and how that happened, I hadn’t a clue. Upon completion of my devotion, I picked up the child gate and called the pups to the bathroom which is the next step in getting ready for our day. Ms. Lily came immeditately and Mr. Dan did not which was unusual. I had to call him again. He did come over and did lay down onto the bathroom floor. This is not unusal and so I continued to get ready for my day. Once ready, I opened the bathroom door and Lily got up but Dan stayed lying on the floor. All of what is happening is now beginning to take root in my mind. The child’s gate fell over and it must have been Mr. Dan who somehow knocked it over. I was on the ground and calling Dan to me. He got up but his back legs gave out and he just laid down. I called to Scott that Dan wasn’t able to get up and that there was something wrong with our Dan.

We carried our Dan downstairs on a blanket and out to Scott’s truck. My vet’s office was closed and so we drove to the emergency clinic. Unfotunately, that clinic was closed until 7 PM. We started to drive back towards another emergency clinic which would have been close to two hours away. Instead, we called my veterinary’s office in another local town. They were able to take us. When we arrived, we took Dan in on a rolling stretcher. The doctor looked at him and the team also took blood samples. The doctor  checked his hind legs for movement or feeling of pain. Dan was not reponding at all in his hind legs. She and the technicians took Dan to give him fluids and pain meds. The bloodwork showed anaplasma but it could be dormant. She also thought that a disc in his lower back may have had an issue.She said that we needed to leave Dan with them and then they would watch for improvement. Things were looking not so good. I was feeling very down but still hopeful that our Lord would pull him thru this trauma.  I continued to pray without ceasing to our Lord for Dan’s recovery. 

Scott and I did go home. Two hours later, we received a call from the veterinarian’s clinic. Dan was getting worse and we would need to take him to the emergency clinic because they could not do anything further for him. When we arrived at the clinic, the doctor sat us down to say that even if Dan would make it thru a surgery, that he more than likely would not gain function of his back legs.  Our son, Zachariah, asked if an x-ray had been done. We then had an xray done. The xray showed a large mass and that made things even worse. I chose to put our precious Dan down. That was a most terrible and excruciating decision. Scott and I stayed with Dan for quite some time. I kept saying no, no, no, no, no, no. no, no, no, no, no. Dan was my strong companion and I knew that I would miss him greatly. I told Dan what a very good boy he had always been. I told Dan what a great dog companion he was to me. We had to say our good-byes. It was gut wrenching and heart wrenching.  Our precious Dan was now completely gone. My heart was so heavy and our Lord placed His arms around me and held me tightly.

It was so very sad and so very difficult to leave our loving and precious Dan at the clinic. I was in such pain to have left him there. We asked for him to be cremated. And when we got home, I did my best to let Ms. Lily know that our Dan was gone.  I put out the blanket that Dan had been laying on and I also put out Dan’s collar on the blanket hoping that these things would help her to grieve his loss.

I talked with our Lord about the loss of Dan. And our Lord reminded me of the email that I had sent to the Berlin View Puppy Kennel owner, Marie. Since I hadn’t heard from Marie with the email that I had sent to her on January 17th, I felt that our Lord wanted me to give her a call. I called her and found out that she had been away on a mission’s trip and that is why she probably had missed my earlier email. I told her about Dan and I also asked her about the pups she had and their cost. We eventually made an appointment to meet on Monday, February 5th for later in the evening with Marie’s father.

Scott and I traveled to Pastor John’s (Marie’s father) home to see the Mini Doodles and the Standard Doodles. I had asked to only see the males and so that is who was there to meet us. Scott immediately went to visit the Standard Doodles. I had heard from our Lord that Jingle Bell (name on the website) was the pup for us. I knew Jingle Bell right away because out of the three golden doodles, he had the most curl in his hair. There was one pup that just kept outshining the others and being so, so cute. Jingle Bell and the other pup were just laying on the dog bed, while being stepped on by the outgoing pup.

While Scott was visiting with the Standard Doodles, I stepped into the Mini Doodle’s pen. There were three and they were just so shy and so very tiny. They would be much easier to care for as far as carrying, bathing, and grooming. However, Scott wasn’t very excited about them and really they were just so shy that I didn’t really feel any connection with any of those three little ones.

So, I ventured back to the Standard Doodles to see how everything was going there. To my surprise, Scott was wanting to get Jingle Bell. Well, I couldn’t argue with that choice because that is the pup that I journalled about getting. I purchased Jingle Bell and we brought him home. Of course, we wouldn’t keep the website name of Jingle Bell; however, honestly, I couldn’t think of any name for him.

Finding our new pup friend’s name seemed to be quite a challenge. I just kept calling him puppy and buddy. Scott mentioned DJ. Can you guess what DJ stands for? DJ stands for Dan Jr. I felt comfortable calling him Dan for Dan Jr. rather than DJ. Our eldest son had his thoughts. His main choice was KP. What is up with initials? I didn’t like the initial names. Then Scott said the name of Shadow. Well, that name seemed to be a name that I could live with. I thought, why was Shadow a good name?  I had heard that name before and I then remembered that Shadow was in the Disney movie, “Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey”. Shadow was the Golden Retriever that led all of the animals home. Well, that was a good story and Shadow would be a good name for our new pup friend.

The journey thru this past few or so weeks has been eased by my precious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  He has been with me from the very beginning when He gave to me the thought of a new puppy for our family. He made sure that I would record my last hike with my precious Mr. Dan and Ms. Lily. Our Lord is ever Faithful and ever Loving to me and to each of us. Good bye my precious Dan. You will be forever loved.