One rainy night, I dreamed a Beagle named Sunny came into our lives. The next day, by strange happenstance, a friendly little tri-color wandered onto our farm, half-starved, with that draggy-saggy look of having recently had a litter of pups.

She looked at me with big, brown eyes.

My husband, Stephen, knelt to pet her. "We should try to find her owner."

Knowing this was the "Sunny" from my dream, I said, "But she doesn't have any identification."

Still, we ran an ad in the paper to try to find her owner. Over the next several days, I dreaded each time the phone rang.

A week later, a storm rumbled far away. We turned out the lights for the night, and rain began to patter on the roof. Within an hour, thunder rattled our front door like an impatient intruder, and lightning flashed through the windows.

As though possessed by a poltergeist, Sunny whined and cried as she frantically scurried around the bedroom; she was clearly frightened by the storm. Finally, she found her way to the closet and pushed the door open with her nose.

Though we coaxed, she refused to come out, and we decided to move her bed to her self-imposed sanctuary. There, in safe darkness and relative quiet, she slept the rest of the night.

Nobody called to claim Sunny, so we adopted her into our animal family -- a dog and four cats. I took her to our veterinarian for a checkup and shots.

"No," Dr. Woody said. "She didn't just have puppies. She's about to have puppies. I'd say in about two weeks."

"She's... pregnant?!" But we were leaving for China in two weeks. I wanted to keep her, but now what would we do?

I guessed Stephen had succumbed to the pregnant Beagle's charms when he talked his son into dog-sitting while we were gone.

Four weeks later, we returned from China to six squirmy, gurgling bundles of joy. Mama Sunny looked at us proudly, as if to say, "See what I did while you two were off gallivanting?"

We saw what she did all right -- with help from what looked like an Australian Shepherd or Blue Heeler.
Over the next few weeks, we fell in love with Oreo -- named for the black "cookie" over her eye, Cleo -- for her Cleopatra eyes, Big Jake -- for his size, Blue -- for his one blue eye, Muffin -- for her golden color, and last-but-not-least, Scrappy, the runt of the litter.

Sunny was a protective and doting mother to her six pups. Though always watchful, she allowed our German Shepherd, Duke, to sniff and poke at the odd little creatures. We laughed as our big, black, ferocious-looking Duke would approach, sniff, and then leap back at the slightest movement from the curious puppies.

When the puppies were a month old, we'd grown a little weary of sleep interrupted by six yelping puppies, and we installed a dog pen in the backyard. We left the gate open, and built a "mini-gate," low enough for Sunny to jump over, but high enough to keep the puppies inside.

Not only did we sleep better, but it also allowed Sunny a break from her half-dozen rumbling, tumbling, suckling fur balls.

With Sunny and her litter tucked safely in the pen, we enjoyed peace and quiet as we crawled into bed. Gentle raindrops tapped on the roof, and the smell of wet earth wafted through open windows. I looked forward to my first undisturbed night's sleep in a long time.

But just as the peaceful weight of slumber settled over me, high-pitched cries drifted into our room from outside. It's okay, I thought. Just the puppies getting used to their new home. Go back to sleep. But the cries soon became frantic, frightened.

And it wasn't the puppies; it was Sunny.

Bright flashes of light flickered outside, followed by claps of thunder that shook the house. The patter of rain turned into a roaring, torrential downpour.

Snug and dry, I fought the call to go outside, but my conscience wouldn't let me ignore Sunny's cries. Climbing out of my warm bed, I pulled on my shoes and raincoat, grabbed a flashlight, and ventured into the cold downpour.

The scene was frightening. A torrent of water poured down the slope of the backyard and through the dog pen like a rushing river. In the strobe-like bursts of lightning, I discovered the puppies had been washed to the edge of the pen, where they huddled together, shivering and whimpering. A wild-eyed Sunny struggled to pull each of her babies over the mini-gate.

I ran to the pen, cold water splashing through my nightgown.

Shining my light on the wet mob, I counted. One, two, three, four, five. Only five? Who was missing? Scrappy! Visions of the littlest puppy being swept away by the water flashed through my mind.

I scanned the pen with my flashlight to see if she might have been swept to a different area by the flood waters.

Nothing.

I scooped up an armload of five soggy puppies and ran to the house. Sunny stayed by my side, jumping up constantly to check on her babies.

Inside, I called upstairs to my husband. "Stephen! Scrappy is gone."

His feet thudded on the upstairs floor. "What do you mean, gone?"

"I have five of the puppies, but Scrappy's missing. There's a river going through the backyard. I'm afraid she was washed away."

We searched the yard, calling for the little runt. Sunny scrambled around in a frenetic fit.

"Where's Scrappy?" I asked, wishing Sunny could comprehend.

She ran to the back deck. Did she understand? I followed, keeping my light on her white-tipped tail. Sunny stood at the edge of the deck, tail erect. I knelt to look beneath. There in the spotlight sat Scrappy, looking like a wide-eyed, shivering rat.

"We found her," I called, at once relieved and amazed.

Sunny had disregarded her fear of thunderstorms to save her puppies. Though Scrappy was the only one she'd been able to carry out of the pen, she'd tried mightily to rescue the others, even through thunder, lightning and rain.

As I held the shivering runt, impulse drove me to rock her back and forth, and I began to recall the times when my own instincts made me ignore my fears to protect my children.

Later, Sunny rested in her indoors pen, surrounded by her six puppies. She looked up at me with those big, brown eyes.

I smiled, realizing a mother's unconditional love is not exclusive to humans. And then I wondered. Maybe dogs are more like their humans than we know.