The Joy and Guilt of Rearing Puppies

It's confession time again. I'll just come right out and say it. I think I killed three dogs. How? By letting my dog get pregnant and finding homes for her puppies.

The Humane Society of the United States estimates that one dog or cat is put down every eight seconds at U.S. shelters. That means three dogs died when my dog's puppies were adopted by people who chose not to go to the pound or shelter. Don't get me wrong, I'm very thankful to the wonderful people who adopted those puppies. But a certain amount of  guilt about the whole issue remains.

It started out innocently enough. I was a volunteer at my local humane society and I felt like I knew a thing or two about pet health and overpopulation. I thought it was common knowledge that spay and neuter is the way to go. But I just couldn't persuade my new boyfriend (now ex) to see it my way. He already had two dogs when we had begun dating. One was already a senior, and she was just fine (despite the fact that they had red carpet and he apparently never realized that it should be cleaned after years of heat cycles).

So I did my best to accept it. When we moved in together, I bought doggie diapers from for the younger dog to wear when she was in heat, saving me some cleaning time. My boyfriend's house had a big, fenced-in back yard, and she could run around in it diaper-free.

One day, my boyfriend was out of town and called home to see how everyone was. I walked to the window to look outside as I told him how everyone was enjoying the nice weather, when I stopped in my tracks. There, in the completely fenced-in back yard, a strange dog was mating with my boyfriend's dog. I was already too late.

Soon, her belly began to grow and I took a crash-course in dog pregnancy and puppy rearing. We bought a circular sandbox from to use as a whelping box. When the time drew near, I began taking her temperature obsessively and mentally preparing for the big day. When it seemed to be time but her water hadn't broken yet, I freaked. I couldn't handle it like I thought I could. I rushed her to AVREC, the Akron Veterinary Referal and Emergency Center late at night.

When they lifted her onto the x-ray table, her water broke. I called my boyfriend and strongly suggested we pay to have the puppies born there. Thankfully, he agreed, because when I returned the next day to pick up momma and her puppies, I was informed that two puppies were deformed and "didn't make it."  I am not sure if they were put down or stillborn, but I don't think I could have handled it either way.

As we raised our precious pups, I started focusing on finding homes and not getting too attached. The latter didn't work very well, as we kept two of the puppies. I didn't even know then that there was such a thing as . I just knew that I had to find these puppies good homes with good people.  So when I placed my ads for the puppies, I set a $50 adoption fee per puppy.  I also knew I did NOT want to contribute any more to pet overpopulation. We also had all the puppies spayed, neutered and vaccinated prior to placing them at , which offers low-cost services.

Although I was confident in my final decisions on who adopted the puppies, I do still carry the guilt with me. It's almost a secret that makes me feel hypocritical. I felt very fortunate, however, that I was able to have all the puppies fixed. And my then-boyfriend changed his tune, as well. When his senior dog developed a large growth on her uterus, she had to be spayed. Seeing how ill the growth caused her to become, and how difficult it was for her, at her age, to recover from being spayed compared to the puppies, he did become a proponent of getting pets fixed.