Truths and Half Truths

My Day So Far

6:12 :   Wake up.  Clear sky, so a hint of light from the impending dawn, but it looks cold.  Maybe try to get another half hour of sleep in.

6:22 :   Wake up again.  Yeah, the half hour?  Not gonna happen.

6:30 :    Downstairs, make a fire in the woodstove, take Roxy out to get the newspaper from the mailbox up the lane.  She doesn't read the newspaper (well, except for the Sports pages), but she seems to enjoy our time together, peeing and pooping.  Well, we don't do that together.  It's more a solo pursuit for her.  Still, it's good times.

6:35 :  Brace myself, then go into the office.  The ambience is, how shall we say, fragrant - palpably so.  Puppies stink.  A lot.  And it's the tears-in-your-eyes kind of fragrant.  But I plunge in.  And here's how it goes:

Fill bowl of puppy food - take Ty out to bond over a few throws of a tennis ball - fill Ty's bowl with kibble - leave her outside - go in, puppies still focussed on food, good - hop into cage, almost gag as I gather up soiled newspapers - take them out to compost - come back, spread new papers in pen - let Ty in just as puppies finish eating, watch them mob her, looking for milk, watch her dodge and weave ("Sorry, kids, those teeth are SHARP!") - then make sure all the water dishes are full, Juliet has her medicine ... and finally ....

7:00 - Collapse on the floor and play with puppies.  That's the nice part.  Puppy breath?  Still intoxicating.  Their teeth are sharp and they get pretty rambunctious, but when they get too nippy I'll pick them up and flip them in a somersault.

Oh, stop.  it's not mean.  We're supposed to manhandle them a bit, broaden their experiential base.  And the funniest thing is to watch Ty play with them - slide her nose under a pup and then *flip* ... puppy tipping.  And if all this was so mean, why do they get up, shake their adorable lil puppy heads ... and charge right back in for more?

They're all asleep now - shagged out from wrestling and exploring.  So I've got a couple of hours before *sniff sniff* ... (sigh) ...

I'm only kinda complaining.  It's a pain, but I know it's not for much longer.  People are starting to come over and sit down on my office floor and let a puppy pick them.   Yesterday a lovely older couple came over and fell in love with Ophelia.  They went to fill out adoption papers at the Humane Society.  Ophelia is the first to get chosen.  It's a bitter-sweet thing.  She's still here, and will be till everyone is fully weaned ... but I know she's moving on and somehow that changes things, in a semi-sad way.

And - AND - adoption papers have been filled out for Ty.  She's such a wonderful dog, I'm happy for the new owners, who we know are kind and sweet.  And of course I'm thrilled for Ty - that was worrisome for us, because she's a five year old dog.  There's a line-up for puppies at the Humane Society, but dogs her age are harder to find homes for.

This is starting to feel like "Mission Accomplished".

How's YOUR Saturday going?

Beyond Cute

OK, I'm sorry.  It's just painfully cute to watch them frolic and gambol about.  They are miles past adorable and it breaks my heart that they'll only be here one more week.  You know, until it comes time to clean their pen ... then I'm okay with their leaving.

But tell me you don't want to scoop them up and rub your nose against theirs and smell the puppy breath and hear their teeny, adorable, puppy growls.  No??  Then you are dead to me.

Oh, and just so we're clear?  This is my office, people.  I work in this space.  With this happening around me.

Yay! Mommy's Home! (for CK)

You know when you've been out, say, playing fetch with a ball or oh, I dunno, at a conference in Miami, and it's all sorts interesting and amusing and all you have to worry about is yourself and how much fun you're having ...

... but you kinda miss the kids, and can't wait to get home ...

... and when you do, the greeting you get is so enthusiastic and everybody's happy and it's noisy and frenetic and "Yay!  Mommy's home!" and they all want a lil piece of you and it's feels soooo good ... ?

Isn't that a great feeling?  I mean, look at Ty's expression at the end of the video.

If that ain't joy, I dunno what it is ...

... except maybe "Oh, fuck, I forgot what it was like."

Heeheeheehee.

Trying Something New

OK ... so on Craig's  suggestion, I downloaded Windows Live Writer, a free blogging program that lets you do WYSIWYG entries and formats them for various blogging platforms (Typepad, Blogger, Wordpress, etc.). 

I've had some troubles in the past with Typepad's various little eccentricities (photo sizing, etc), and I know Laura has as well.  And I hate posting, going to read the post, finding typos and spacing glitches and whatnot, going back to the entry window, re-saving the changes, checking again, finding a comma missing, and on and on. 

This is allowing me to see the post as it will appear on my blog even as I type it and insert the pics, sizing them by dragging and stretching (woohoo! no more using Typepad's craptastic photo sizing utility! ) and even giving them a cute lil border.

(What better way to test this than with a cute puppy pic?  Say "hi" to Caesar.)

 

Another cool feature is that it remembers links - so if I just type Laura and then type V into the space for the url, it gives me a dropdown menu and sure enough, there's Vitamin Sea.  VERY cool, because normally I have to open another tab, click on the link to bring it up, then copy and paste.

Although I'm typing this before I'm actually going to post it, of course - it's promising to let me to post exactly what I see here. 

As much as I am loathe to say anything nice about Microsoft - this seems to work pretty sweet.  I had to install the Windows.NET package (which I found here, along with the inevitable accompanying Service Pack to fix all that was wrong with it) in order to let Windows Live Writer work.  But it seems like a good solution to a bunch of niggling little problems.

If you're a blogger, look into it.

Juliet Returns

Allie brought Juliet home from the Vet College today, and put her in with her brothers and sisters.  The roiling,  joyous dogpile that resulted was broken up by Ty, who wanted a good, long sniff, checking out her little girl from tip of tail to  the fine hairs on the end of her cute lil snout.

All seemed in order, and although Juliet is now definitively the runt of the litter - much smaller than her siblings - she took a healthy run at the food bowl and seems active and more or less content (if a little intimidated by all the furry bodies intent on smashing her about). 

She's on antibiotics, but her breathing seems effortless and it looks like she's on the road back to a full recovery.  Now, who was it who said "All's well that ends well!"?  Why, I believe it was the playwright who gave these guys all their names ...

More Puppy Video

I promise this won't become an everyday thing, but today Puck got introduced to the concept of "wet grass".  Here he is with Allie and mom Ty.

Juliet will be ready to be picked up later today, and according to the receptionist at the Vet College "she also just may have found a home out of all this"  (vet college students are encouraged to take pets during their time at school).

Incidently, those of you who are worried about Ty's prospects will feel better about the fact we have quite a lineup of people keen to come see her.  And she's such a great dog I can't believe it won't work out for her.

Fostering the puppies has been fun and gets more comical every day (ohh, their little puppy growls as they play fight?  Melt your heart!).  But it'll be good when it's done and while I send out my love to all you people who were so sure we were going to end up with a newcomer to our house, we're all agreed that it will be enough to find them good homes elsewhere.

In any event - more puppy cuteness:

 

Puppies on Video!

For Torrie, who demanded puppy cuteness on video.  This weekend, Allison started the weaning process.  You can tell that the puppies are very reluctant to sample this "solid food" crap.

Update on Juliet:  She's doing exceptionally well, pneumonia seems cleared up, she's eating like a pig, and the doc said they'd call us sometime Sunday to come get her and reunite her with the rest.  How great is that???

Again, thank you all for your good vibes.  You may now return your vibes to their regular places.

Let's Hope

This afternoon, I took Ty out to throw a ball for her.  She loves to chase the ball, although frankly I think she could use a sports bra - it looks painful.  She doesn't complain.

We got back into the house and I opened the pen and she trotted happily in, to be greeted by a bunch of hungry mouths ... Desdemona was first (as always, the lil porker), followed by Caesar and Romeo, Othello and Puck, and Antony and Ophelia.  I noticed that lil Juliet wasn't too interested - she just stayed in a corner, not quite sleeping but not moving much.  I jotted a note for Allison to have a glance at her, make sure she was OK.

Later in the afternoon, the puppies were getting rambunctious - wrestling and growling at one another, tumbling in a pile.  I took Ty out again, just for a quick whiz, and then let her back into the pen and once again they all crowded towards her, each latching on for supper.

Except Juliet.

I looked at her a little more closely, and noticed that she was thinner than the rest.  She was listless, uninterested in eating.  I put her right to her mom's body and she just turned away.

I called Allison in.  Allie picked Juliet up, looked her over, then motioned for the phone.  She punched in the number for the Humane Society and the veterinarian who runs it, Els Cawthorne.  Els led her through some simple tests, then asked us to bundle the lil girl up and bring her in.

On the drive in, Juliet seemed to gain a little bit of life, but it was clear there was something wrong.  Once we got there, Els looked her over and felt pretty sure there was something wrong with the puppy's breathing - it was laboured and shallow.  But, like most Animal Shelters, there wasn't much in the way of diagnostic equipment there, so Els picked up the phone.

She called the Atlantic Veterinary College, part of the University of Prince Edward Island, and explained to the lead intern (it was evening by now, and a skeleton staff on duty) what the problem was.  After a couple of minutes, Els said "We'll bring her over.  I trust your judgement on this.  If we can help her, we should help her, but ..." - she glanced at us apologetically - "... nothing heroic."

I get that.  I mean, there's a reason puppies come in eights.  Mother Nature (the bitch) expects some attrition.  And if the puppy's health will be compromised in the long term, that makes her unadoptable, and leads to all sorts of other problems.  So, if there is a serious problem ... well ... we don't have to talk about it, but we all know what has to happen.

We took the lil darlin' in, and they were very kind.  Took her and put her in an oxygen tent to help her breathe better and they'll run a bunch of tests tonight.  It's quite possible it's pneumonia, probably "aspirated pneumonia", meaning some food went down the wrong way and caused infection.  And if that's the case, it could be treatable with antibiotics, although a three week old puppy doesn't have many resources in the way of an immune system.  So even that will be tough.

If it's something more - like, say, an underdeveloped esophagus or congestive heart issues ... well, that's a less hopeful scenario.

I hope things turn out, I really do.  And hey, if you have some spare good vibes, fire 'em along.  It's just a teeny puppy, one of eight.

But ... she's sweet.  Be a shame.  So ... let's hope.

Update!  Late Friday Afternoon:

The vet, a lovely woman named Melanie, called this morning to tell me she's quite happy with how Juliet is doing.  They put her in an oxygen tent in Intensive Care and her breathing eased almost immediately.  They put a mist into the tent and that helped, too.

The diagnosis is what they expected: aspirated pneumonia (see above).  So, with luck, a careful program of appropriate antibiotics can sort everything out.  She's not out of the woods yet, but things are looking much better.

You're all a bunch of sweeties for sending kind thoughts and good vibes.  Thanks, kids.

They Grow On You

... and grow and grow, by the day. Warning:  Cute Overload.

Allie with Desdemona

Desi tries out her teeth.

Why does no work get done round here?

Puppy breath?  Just the nicest smell on earth.

Puppy kisses?  Awwwww.

BUT

May I remind everyone:

NO NEW DOGS.

Erin and Caesar

Your Caption Here