We Lost Our Pooja

I will attempt to find words...because I don't want to face the task of trying to write about it tomorrow.  I need tomorrow to be a fresh day.

Since the early days Pooja has never once missed greeting us at the front door first thing in the morning.  In general, she considered the front porch the throne from which she surveyed her domain.  On warm sunny days she and Shachah would rest in the cool sand on the north side of the house.  Always she was in sight of her sheep and our family.

But this morning Pooja was nowhere to be found. 

Clancy and I both sensed something was very wrong.  She had been on the porch at bedtime the night before...and we knew she was not a dog to be distracted from her routine.

We could only imagine three scenarios:

1.  She fell through the rotten lake ice.

2.  She got caught in a trap, because there is a man that traps beaver in our immediate area.

3.  She got injured in a confrontation with a predator.

I was obligated to be in Bemidji most of the day.  I searched a bit in the morning and Clancy promised to search over his lunch hour.  I called a few neighbors just in case she had run off.

Clancy called me on my cell in the early afternoon to tell me he had found Pooja's body floating several yards off shore just north of our garden.  We don't know how or why, but sometime during the night she had fallen through the ice and was not able to escape.  We do know that Pooja never played in the water...and she had chased wolves across the lake earlier this winter...so we assume she charged some "threat" and met her end defending her precious yard.

I feel so devastated.  Aside from being just a pure sweetheart of a dog, Pooja was so valiant.  We got to see her 'in action' several times this winter.  She was truly a gentle and fearless warrior.  It does not seem fair that she should die in the prime of her life...and in such an awful way.  I know I have to make peace with this situation.  But at the moment, I am heartbroken.

Pooja

12/1/06  -  3/22/12