On dying...

Don't really have much time for an update this morning...

We lost a pheasant over the weekend. Hubby and I were out at a friend's 40th birthday dinner when we got a phone call from a very upset S. When Hubby got off the phone, he told me all of the pheasants were dead. That didn't make any sense to me, so I called home to find out what had happened.
When S answered the phone he seemed okay, but when I asked him what happened, he started to cry all over again and told me that one of them "was just laying there dead" when he went out to see them.
After a little while talking with him, I was able to calm S down. He didn't realize that it was a possibility with birds so young, I guess. Once he realized that the hatchery gave us an extra one "just in case," I think he started to feel better. He'd been repeating, "I just wish there had been something I could have done to have helped it."

The A-man went out and covered the bird with a bowl so that the others wouldn't peck at it, and Hubby "buried" it yesterday. We had frost last night, so I was wondering how they would do in their brooding pen; all are fine this morning.

On another sad note, it looks like we are going to have to put our dumb beagle down this week. I am very sad about this, but it is just terrible watching him in such pain. The sad part is that it all came on so quickly. He went to his original home for the weekend - just for his last good-byes there, and I guess we will have this week to cuddle and snuggle him and try and say our good byes. It's going to be tough for S. Just seeing how emotional he got over a bird that we'd had only 4 days was bad - it's going to be tough for a dog we've had most of his life.