My P-Girl

My Piper is such an amazing child! Sometimes things happen that really show your child's strengths and today was one of those days. Although the story is quite heartbreaking, my daughter's resilience shows through.

We took Piper's favorite kitten to Grandmommie & Grandaddy's house today for no particular reason, Piper just wanted to take him. Keep in mind that her favorite kitten was one of the strays found by the creek that was painfully underfed and flea infested to the point that its black fur was falling out. We were feeding him well and treated him for fleas, but he was still pretty rough looking (in my opinion, not Piper's).

Piper had him in his little cat carrier most of the time we were there but somehow he happened to be out when the neighbor's Labrador Retriever named Dallas came over. You can easily guess what happened, but Dallas grabbed the kitten in his mouth and the result was not good. What really surprised me though was my daughter's reaction to the whole episode. She witnessed the whole thing and immediately began screaming and fighting Dallas (I should mention he is well over 100 pounds, a very large dog) for the kitten to the point of being bitten herself. Her mothering instinct took over and she was going to get her kitten from that dog. A large group of family saw what was happening and ran to assist her. It was so traumatic for all of us, but especially my brave little girl. She was so torn up emotionally but thankfully the dog bite was not too bad. We had to bury her kitten and her cousins put flowers on the grave, but she was not ready to see it yet.

What I realized from talking to her later was that she was not upset with Dallas, she was upset with herself for being unable to "save" her kitten. Just like any mother, she was not intimidated by the enemy, he just made her fight that much harder. She thought she should have been able to take on that huge dog and win, that's just her heart. She has a lion's heart and I love her for it!