Happy New Year – Puppies for Everyone!

Happy New Year! We celebrated in much the same way we have each year – dear friends, board games, leftover Christmas cookies, and plenty of beverages. I worried that Hadley would be completely overloaded by the presence of so many new faces, including a three-year-old, but she surprised us all by joining the party.

As we gathered around the new puzzle/coffee table (the one my AMAZING husband built for me for Christmas!!), Hadley hopped up on the couch and hung with us for the duration. Despite her crate being open and the three-year-old instructing her to get in there so she could latch the door (she’d already tucked Gracie into her crate for the night), Hadley sat gamely (so to speak) through a loud game of Telestrations and plenty of rounds of Apples to Apples.

It’s so clear to me that this dog doesn’t want to be alone. For all her fear and trembling, she loves people. My new year’s hope is that she finds her forever home quickly so she can start falling in love with the right person.

I’ve been taking her for “therapy walks” at a local park, having given up trying to walk her on our street. Cars moving fast, up close, are simply too much for her. The park is perfect because she can see the road, but the cars are not too close. The first few walks, she still hit the deck when a car passed on the road, but now she simply cringes. On the far side of the walking trail we pass by a fence that separates the park from a rest stop on the interstate. Trucks arriving or leaving, still cause her to cower, but again, she’s realizing while they may sound scary, they won’t actually hurt her. Just like with her crate, careful, contained immersion into the world of her fears seems to be the best tactic with Hadley.

She still enjoys the puppies. Here’s a video of her playing with Snap Dragon.

The puppies are much too cute and have proved to be distracting on all kinds of levels. Right now Snap Dragon is leading a chorus of whining and Sneezewort is punctuating their message with yaps. They are lobbying for me to leave this laptop and come play, play, play. I’m resisting, but that’s just tough talk. For all you know, I might have just gotten back to the computer after five seriously long snuggles and the launch of numerous tennis balls. Or not.

Not much is getting checked off my to-do list. I could stand in the puppy room doorway and watch them all day. They’re like a comedy team. Sneezewort is Jim Carrey. Foxglove is John Goodman. Begonia is Amy Pohler and Pigweed is Tina Fey. Which leaves Snap Dragon to play the straightman much of the time. Even though he’s up for a crazy romp, sometimes while the others play tackle Pigweed, he will sneak off with a coveted toy. It never lasts long, though, because Sneezewort is the camp director and leaves no campers unattended. I can’t help but giggle at the way they walk on top of each other, chewing on any stray limb or ear or tail. The battles are epic.

They sleep in piles and it’s hard to tell where one puppies starts and another ends.

My husband turned 50 (gasp!) this week and although we plan to travel to Grand Cayman Island to celebrate our monumental birthdays in style this February, I did sneak him away to visit Gettysburg (where there are more monuments than anywhere else I know). This meant leaving my teenagers in charge of the puppies. Yep, I do like to live dangerously.

I left detailed instructions and paid them per poop. In one 24-hour period, Ian cleaned up 16 poops and Addie put the rubber gloves on and held her nose long enough to deal with 7. If you’re doing your math, that means five puppies produces 23 poops in 24 hours. That’s nearly one poop per hour! Consider that next time you think – hey, it’d be fun to foster puppies!

To their credit, these pups are basically paper-trained, so that certainly helps. They’ve made it clear that puppy-pads are simply large plastic chew toys, so adopters beware – no point is wasting the big bucks on those lovely pads.

I’ve taken to rotating the toys through the pen, but they’re favorites are the stuffed animals and the shoes. This should make them excellent mom-helpers in their new homes– training residents to put away their toys and their shoes.

Gosh, I will miss these pups when they take off for their forever homes next week. They are a beautiful, loving, relatively smart crew and will grow up to be such wonderful dogs. At least five families are starting off the new year on a high note.