Puppy Complaints (and Perks)

You’d think if you were a kid and you had a pack of puppies in your house, it would be awesome.

Heaven, really.

Not my kids.

It’s not that they don’t like them—they do.

They’re just over it. Completely.

I didn’t think anyone could ever max out on puppies, but I guess I’m wrong. Only weirdos like me insist on nonstop puppies.

Here are the complaints:

The puppies whine.

They smell.

They chew on me.

And sometimes when I pick them up, they have poo on them, so it gets on me.

And whenever you go out of town (not that I’m a high-flying, globetrotter or anything), we have to clean the puppy pen….and mix up the puppy mush….and wipe poo off of puppies.

One last grievance: the puppy towels back up the laundry.

Occasionally, the laundress doesn’t deliver their clean clothes the same day as their dirty clothes appear in the laundry room. (And yes, I know, they should do their own laundry, but we have solar hot water so the laundry nazi insists that laundry only be done when the sun is shining. The inmates are generally in school when that happens.)

Fostering puppies is a serious investment in laundry, I admit.

Despite all that, all three kids agree that they are cute. They even announce it as they pass the pen, “Look at you guys. You’re so cute!”

And yet, they can resist, somehow.

The puppies impress their friends, though. “You have puppies?! You’re so lucky!”

And I score serious points, “Your mom is so cool to let you have puppies!” (This said as if me ‘letting’ them have puppies is what is happening here.)

It is in fact visits from these same friends that finally drive my children to enter the puppy pen. They show them around as if they’ve decorated the pen themselves. “Oh yeah, they love the six-squeaker snake.” Uh-huh.

But all of that aside, the complaints and the exaggerations, I’m grateful that my family puts up with me and my puppies. I know they don’t find the same joy I do in their presence. The puppies bring plenty of clutter, mess, and yes, smell into our house. But they also bring serious happy.

And right about now, when the world is incredibly gray, puppies are a good thing. A very good thing.

If you’re local and need some ‘puppy therapy’ to keep the winter blues at bay, let me know. This pack of puppies always welcome playmates. Just don’t wear your good clothes. You might get poo on you.

For more updates on fosters past and present, be sure to join the Another Good Dog facebook group.

If you’d like to know more about me and my writing, I’d be honored if you checked out CaraWrites.com. (Oh, and I write another blog called My Life in Paragraphs about my writing life, if you just can’t get enough.)

For information about my fosters and other dogs and puppies available for adoption, volunteering, or fostering yourself, check out ophrescue.org.

And now, this week’s best pictures: