06/29/2024
This week I said goodbye to my soulmate….my Hannah dog. Some of you may not know that I have a daughter named Hannah. Twelve years ago when I “accidentally” decided to name my puppy “Hannah”, I had to go to my daughter to ask her permission. She gave me permission but since then she has never been able to call my dog by her name! It has always been a source of amusement in our family. Since that day, my dog has been known as Hannah dog to distinguish who I might be talking about. When I am talking directly to one of them, my daughter has never learned to distinguish if I am talking to her or Hannah dog. My dog always seemed to be able to tell the difference!
So how did Hannah dog and I come to be soul mates? Hannah was born in May of 2012 to our Hobby and Biba. I had almost lost Biba when she had her 1st litter of puppies 2 years earlier. I was reluctant to breed her again for this reason. So when this 2nd litter was born, which was the 1st litter that Biba and Hobby had together, I knew I would have to keep a puppy from Biba in the unthinkable event that I lost her. Hannah dog would be the 1st puppy that I had ever kept from any of my breedings since Loveline Golden Retrievers was conceived. So Hannah would be special for both of those reasons. In God’s mercy, we did not lose Biba and she went on to have 2 other wonderful litters with Hobby and 1 with our Rey and gave us 13 wonderful years of life!
Hannah was one of 9 puppies from Biba and Hobby’s 2012 litter. We didn’t give theme names to our litters back then. Instead every puppy was given a name that meant “love”, usually in another language. Hannah stood out to me from the litter because she made eye contact with me every time I went to the whelping box or the puppy pen or puppy yard. She always saw me coming and came running up to me. And when I would pick her up, my 6 month old puppy, Rey, would come and lick her. He would even jump into the pen with the puppies and pick her out to play with! Rey and Hannah grew up to be a match made in heaven, as I once wrote in one of my posts. I never bred Hannah with any other dog. But why did I name her Hannah? I had purchased another puppy that same year from another breeder. I named that puppy “Raham”, which we shortened to
“Rey”. I chose “Raham” because it is a Hebrew word that means “care, be mild, have mercy, have tender affection, have compassion” which describes the characteristics of God’s love toward us. In the Bible there is another word that is a sister to God’s mercy and that always go together….mercy and grace. I knew that my 2nd 2012 puppy would need to have the name grace. At that time, all of my dogs were given Hebrew words for names that described characteristics of God’s love. So I wanted to call her the Hebrew name for “grace”….that was “Channah” also spelled “Hannah”. Of course, my daughter’s name was Hannah so that would not work. But I had named by daughter “Hannah” for a different reason…. because I loved the story of “Hannah” and her faith. So I decided to ask her permission, and as I said earlier, she was OK with the idea! So I had my mercy and grace to remind me daily of God’s mercy and grace that He bestows on me over and over again. And Hannah has been nothing short of a blessing of God’s grace to me for the past 12 years. She has been my constant companion. We trained together to do so many things. Most of Hannah’s early training was right beside her mother, Biba, as Hannah learned and participated in everything that Biba did. Hannah became a Therapy Dog when she was 1 year old and joined her mom and dad as the Loveline Therapy Dog team, becoming familiar visitors at our local elementary schools and at the juvenile court at the Douglas County Courthouse. Hannah trained as an agility competitor and was much more competitive and faster than Biba ever was. Biba loved agility as long as she didn’t have to compete! But Hannah quickly came to love her K9 Nose Work training more than agility and we began competing in K9 Nose Work much more regularly. Hannah was absolutely crazy about doing Nose Work! It was her passion! I never saw her ears perk up for anything more than the words “go search”. And she was much better at Nose Work than her mom was as well. She was rivaled only by her dad, Hobby! Hannah and I went on to compete in Nose Work trials until just a couple of months ago, before we had to say farewell to each other. She was just a few points short of her Elite 3 Title in K9 Nose Work. Another one of Hannah’s favorite activities was learning new tricks. Hannah earned her Novice, Intermediate, Advanced and Performance titles in the AKC Trick Dog program. We were working on her Elite Performance routine in which she would tell the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears with her tricks! Hannah was just a blast to teach new things to. She loved every challenge that came her way. She was willing to try just about anything for me. I loved her large brown alert eyes, her constant bouncing as she anticipated the next cue or treat, and her happy wagging tail. Hannah loved life!
One thing that she did with me that she did not love was ride in my car! I have totaled 3 cars in my lifetime of driving and Hannah dog happened to be in the car in 2 of those wrecks. Fortunately, no one was ever injured…..just my cars. But after that when we would go out the door of the house and I said to Hannah, let’s get in the car, she would stop, turn around and go back to the door. I would have to pick her up and carry her to the car. Once we got going she was OK, but she never liked the idea of getting in my car! But she loved traveling. She loved the beach, she loved the ocean, she loved hiking, kayaking, paddle boarding, sailing, hotels and shopping. She went on just about every trip that we went on and on every vacation. She was a great traveler….as long as she could ride in my lap! I think that is where she felt safe!
Another significant part of Hannah’s life was spent as a mother. Hannah and Rey parented 51 wonderful puppies during her 12 years of life. That is a record for Loveline. But part of the reason for so many litters is that she started young and she was a great mother! She loved having puppies! Her first litter was an accidental breeding by Rey when Hannah was only 9 months old. We did not realize that Rey was a very athletic fence jumper, even when he was 13 months old! While we were out walking the pack one day during Hannah’s first heat cycle, Rey snuck back home, jumped the fence where Hannah was hanging out, romanced her, and jumped back out of the fence and met me at the bottom of the hill with a big smile. It wasn’t until about 7 weeks later when I thought Hannah was getting very fat that we realized what had happened. This was our Teenage Pregnancy litter of 9 puppies. Stella, my sweet grandpuppy, who belongs to my daughter, Hannah, came from this litter. We didn’t let Rey get to Hannah again for the next year and a half. Her next litter was the 10 Wine Collection puppies in 2014. The other litters produced by Rey and Hannah were the Gifts of Grace which were born on Hannah’s 3rd birthday, the Yankee Doodles, the Anchors Aweigh pups, and the 2 Faerie Tails, Hansel and Gretel, which I had planned to be Hannah’s last litter. But since there were only 2 puppies and I had several families that wanted a Hannah/Rey puppy, I decided to breed her 1 more time. That was the 7 Hallelujah Chorus puppies. I thought Hannah was done, so I kept a puppy from that litter to continue the Biba/Hannah heritage! That is my Zeteo, also known as Sweet T or Teo. But wait…..there was 1 more litter….another accident at the very end. This was the Music City Trio, so named because Hannah actually whelped this litter of 3 in Nashville, Tennessee, where my daughter, Hannah, had just given birth to her first child! We had to be there and Hannah dog wasn’t going to wait on me….and I wasn’t going to let her do it without me! We were a team! The Hannah/Rey line is big and I am so glad to know that there are so many families that have a part of Hannah and Rey in their lives. I am sure they are all just as special to them as Hannah has been to me.
When one spends this amount of time with a dog, a very special bond develops between you and your dog. Hannah’s eyes were always on me; she never missed a move that I made. And when I had to leave her at home, her greetings when I returned were over the top dramatic with a series of moans, whines and yelps to let me know how much she missed me. I felt very loved….more so than from any other dog that I have ever had. I do miss her so much. Hannah and I had so much fun together at home, at the beach, on the lake, in the hay fields, in the woods and on our Therapy Dog visits. She loved doing all of the activities mostly because she loved being with me…..and she loved her treats and her green rubber ball! I am not sure if I was better than the treats! But I can say that a part of my heart is now missing and I will never get it back. My Hannah dog is gone.
