Naptime Blog

After my divorce from her father followed by meeting and getting engaged to Paul, I knew we needed to do something special for Juliana.  So we decided to get her her own puppy.  I wanted a small to medium sized dog, one with no shedding, child friendly and playful.  Paul and I drove to a farm in Pennsylvania and brought back the most adorable black cockapoo puppy ever.  Juliana got her puppy Christmas of 2006.    She named him King, because she was very much into the Disney Princesses, and so he became her “King”.  King was a great puppy, and she loved him so.

When I got pregnant with the twins, it became more and more difficult for me to be a good dog owner.  When I was on bedrest, King would pee and poop all over the house, even after I just walked him.  He would dump the garbage and eat it, six or seven times in a row.  No matter what I did to keep trouble away from King, King found trouble.  Once the twins were born, he was back to his good old self again.

When I got pregnant with Joseph, King was back to his old tricks again.  It became evident that King was jealous of his Mama being pregnant and he was even more jealous with all these babies around.  He would growl and jump on the babies, and although he was the BEST dog to Juliana (who was now 7), he was not good with the babies.

After many months of trying, taking him for obedience lessons, working with him, working with Juliana, we had to do something.  My cousin in upstate New York had a white cockapoo, and was happy to take King to live with them.  Juliana was upset, but she knew it was best for all of us.  At the end of last summer, King went to go live with my cousin and his wife.  Juliana was planning on visiting this summer, once school ended.  That won’t happen.

I found out this morning that King was hit by a car and died.  He liked to go across the road to the farm and visit.  Well this morning, on his regular walk, he was killed by a car.  Paul and I are heartbroken.  We don not know how to break it to Juliana.

Of course I feel even more terrible that if I had only done a little bit more for King while he lived with us, he’d still be alive today.  I know we did the best we knew at the time, but now, I don’t know.  My daughter is going to be very upset.  This is not a conversation a parent wants to have with her daughter.

Jennifer Nevadomski
Paul’s Wife
Mom to: Juliana, 8 – Louis and Anthony, 22 months – Joseph, 8 months
www.nevaland.com