Ode to Maggie the Magpie · Thrive Community

Ode to Maggie the Magpie

We lost a duck today. A fox ran through the yard and got her. Even though I saw the fox and ran over, I was too late to be able to save her.

I feel heartbroken.

It feels important to honor her, even though I have other things I need to post. I can post those later.

She’s the black and white duck in the pics below, and she always went everywhere with Drake, who’s the brown duck.

Drake is devastated today. Maybe in shock. He was there when the fox got her.

She is in the video below with the guineas, you can hear a little of her signature quack.

Foxes don’t usually come around during the day, they tend to lurk when it’s dark out. Maybe this one was extra hungry, who knows.

The tool I used to help me process this is called the Nurturing and Limits Cycle, from Dr. Laurel Mellin’s body of work. We use her tools during our Stress Eating Support Group.

Wanted to share how I processed this situation with you because it’s a tool you can also use when you feel devastated or frustrated, for whatever reason.

I’ll probably need to do it a few times, to get through the emotions, it’s so hard to lose an animal.

These are the types of tools I use instead of turning to food to help comfort me, like I have in the past.

I find emotional processing tools to be much more effective in moving through emotions and less harmful to my health and well being goals.

Here’s how it goes…

1.)Connect with feelings in a specific order..

Anger- I feel angry that I wasn’t there to be able to save Maggie. I’m angry that the Fox came by during the day, I can’t stand it that Drake lost his good friend and companion. I hate that this terrible thing happened.

Sadness- I’m so sad that we lost this wonderful duck, who has so much sass and so much personality. I’m sad that I wasn’t there in that moment to chase the fox away. I’m sad that she’s gone .

Fear- I’m afraid that the fox will come back and try to take more ducks. I’m afraid that Drake is gonna have a hard time.

Guilt- I feel guilty that I let the ducks out earlier than usual. I feel guilty that I wasn’t able to protect her

2.)Check in with expectations, change them to be more reasonable when necessary - unreasonable expectations can lead to constant frustration-

I expect myself to prevent things like this from happening. Is that reasonable?

To an extent, yes, and yet we live in a place where we have predators.

Reasonable expectation: I expect we do our best to keep our animals safe, and yet tragedies can and do occur sometimes. I expect we learn from these tragedies and learn how to protect our animals better in future.

3.) Find a positive and powerful thought-

Even though it absolutely sucks that this happened, we can learn from this, how to prevent it, and we can find more duck friends for Drake. He needs companions, especially now. I learn from every situation that happens and it helps me to do better as I go

4.) Face the essential pain-

The essential pain is that we lost Maggie. And she was a great duck with lots of personality! She was sassy to us humans, but that was part of her charm. It’s so hard to lose a duck, or any animal!

5.) Find a Lesson Learned or Earned Reward

This reminds us that we do still have foxes around, even though we haven’t seen them in a while. We need to keep the ducks in their duck run for a few days, the fox will probably be back, and keep our guardian dog closer to the birds.

6.) ask, what do I need?

I need to find some female duck companions for Drake. He seems really depressed after this happened. Who can blame him?

We need to make sure ducks are extra secure for the next few days/weeks. Foxes will come back to places where they’ve found food.

I need to share this emotional processing tool I used when this terrible situation happened. This can help others in the group when they’re going through difficult things or challenging emotions.

7.) Do I need support?

I need to share this with you all, I know there are animal lovers in here who would understand.

Thank you for listening.

Even though it’s not a Tuesday, this feels somehow appropriate to post in the Tricky Tuesday category.

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