A Week With Puppies

All Seven Chowing Down
"Did I just volunteer to babysit seven puppies?!?!?!"

This is what I asked as we got back into our car after visiting puppies.

See, we're in the market to adopt. And since I'm home full time for now, we're considering adopting a puppy. We've never had a baby puppy before and I thought it might be an enjoyable life experience to try ... just once.

So we got word there was a new litter of small breed puppies and we all jumped in the car to meet them.

As we're rolling around playing with these teeny six-week old puppies, the foster mama was saying she's on vacation next week and would be leaving all seven of them with a neighbor who, unfortunately, works full time. So the pups wouldn't be getting a lot of attention until they got back.

The Set-Up, In the Family Room
Maybe I had a little puppy fever, but I offered our house. 

 It's Spring Break and we have zero plans -- we just arrived from Paris and we have some travel in April and a big vacation in August. 

 Plus, we're hoping our shipment of good from Paris arrives. 

 And it made perfect sense, the girls would be busy looking after puppies instead of begging me to take them places, and I could get more housework done. Win-win. 

The adoption organization, which is run by a neighbor, jumped on it. And the pups were delivered the following Friday. Just long enough that the anticipation of hosting them became unbearable. Alice and I were the most excited.

We've gotten A LOT of funny reactions ... mostly "good luck sleeping!" and "that's a lot of poop." But mostly people think we're nuts. "Why would you do that, are you crazy?!"

But, if I'm being perfectly honest, this decision feels anything but crazy. It was the most sane decision I've made in a long time. I'm going with my gut here and it feels right.

Alice and Bruce
Anyway, no doubt about it ... seven puppies produce A LOT of poop. But they sleep a lot, too. And they have busy times at night but we don't hear them ... but we DO have a lot of poop to clean up each morning.

And we get to NAME them. Over and over again. It's the most fun. Teeny is the runt. Bruce is our favorite (as of today). Joshua Feinstein is named after our friend who is the instigator, because the puppy version is always getting into the other pups' business. Bruno is cute, a loner but not too bright. Henry (AKA Mr. Muffin) is sweet but also not too smart. Lily is the other girl. Last, there's Eddie, who loves to play and is also our favorite.

So, yes, I'm feeling overall good. So is Alice ...

Alice is really into the puppies. And I love seeing how much responsibility she's taking for the pups, doing the laundry, giving baths, picking up the poo/pee pads. I've given over the run of them to her and she's loving the opportunity to be the boss.

PLUS ... one of these little guys will stay with us once they all get adopted out next week. It feels like we're auditioning all the pups to one day join our family. And that's been really fun.

If you want to play with pups, come on over. It's puppy city. And, nope, I'm not the least bit sorry about the decision to invite them over.




Related links:
Read more about our history with DOGS (spoiler: I wasn't always onboard)

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