It's still easy for me to get frustrated with the puppies these days. Like last night, when I took them out one by one in a near-freezing thunderstorm to potty: Lizzie did her business right away and got to go straight back inside, but both of the boys whined and cried and jumped and pled and swore that they didn't have to potty (as I held the umbrella over them instead of me), but then came indoors and immediately pooed and peed on the floor. Or like how I have to keep Lizzie apart from the boys about 95% of the time now because of how viciously they gang up and attack her (I can't wait until they're old enough to be neutered! Two more months!!).
But I'm also still finding plenty to appreciate about puppy rearing. Lately I've enjoyed:
- Sitting with a cup of coffee or tea and my New Yorker magazine after the first morning playtime and listening to the puppies snoring in their crates on the floor next to me.
-Carrying a puppy out for potties and getting free kisses on the cheek. (One day, after I'd been gone a bit longer than expected on a trip to Target, Joey suddenly grabbed my face with both his paws as I lifted him up, and frenched me good. I've never been a fan of getting licked on (or in!) the mouth by dogs, but that one definitely made me laugh.)
-Carrying a puppy in from potties on a cold day and holding him or her against my neck for warmth (for both of us). Or pressing my ear up to the puppy's side while he/she stands with front paws on my shoulder--it's weirdly pleasant.
-Finishing a cooking or baking project just as the puppies are waking up right on time from a scheduled nap. Scheduling has given me the freedom to plan non-puppy-related work and activities and be reasonably certain I won't be interrupted. (For example, I know I have just under an hour to finish this blog entry.) Spot is a stickler for the schedule, and often barks to be let out at the very minute it says "potties" on the index card. How does he know?
-Waking up the morning after a horrible night, when I've wondered if I can take any more of the puppies' naughtiness, and finding that I'm incredibly excited to pull the towel off the crates and see my "babies" once more. And seeing that they're excited to see me, too!
I still have a hard time keeping the puppies entertained, though. I knew I was boring, but I had no idea how boring until I started getting looks like this:
This photo is from about a week before I had to quit leaving Lizzie in with the boys:
She wants out!:
(At this point, they would only attack her viciously behind my back, like if I went to the other room to get their food or tried to wash some dishes. Now, if I even just begin to lower her into the pen, they leap and snap at her flesh like sharks. For a little while, I would leave her with one of the boys and take the other into another room to wear him out by playing with him, then trade them out, but now I just let Lizzie play in my bedroom. Problem is, whoever I'm not supervising thinks it's totally okay to use the floor as a toilet. I'm going to try to block off a little cove of the kitchen near my cabinets just for Lizzie, so I can keep at least half an eye on everyone.)
The attack begins!:
I put the camera down after this and got her out of there:
For these shots, I held the camera down in front of the crates without looking at what I was photographing. They came out really cute:
Lizzie's yawning here:
Max has to bend down in order to fully extend "the ears":
The boys don't just attack Lizzie. Their primary interest is now fighting each other:
Poor Lizzie amuses herself with digging:
While the fight continues in another corner:
Poor, lonely Lizzie:
Lizzie's ready to go in:
So is Spot. It's too hot for Spot:
(Texas spring is unpredictable--80 degrees one day, 44 degrees the next. Even on the hottest days, even with the canopy up, the puppies always want to play in the sunny strip of the pen.)
A fight between Lizzie and Max:
(For a little while, she could hold her own against either boy individually.)
They stop fighting to observe a neighbor putting out some trash:
Poor Max is too tall for his crate! Especially with those ears!!:
Here's a brand new 30 pound bag of puppy food. I marked the date and time on it just before I opened it so we can see how long it takes three five-pound puppies to eat this much food (I predict it will be gone before the end of May):
Here I attempted to reenact a photo from when Lizzie was only nine days old in order to show how much she has grown, even though she is still small:
See?:
Max got jealous and wanted to be held the same way:
He's a good lap dog--very calm and still:
(...Unless he's scared of something. Max is terrified of the collar and leash, and won't let me trim his nails. It's difficult with the others, but Max will claw his way up your neck and climb onto your head and hang down and claw your back and shoulders. It's horrible!)
For a while, the boys would mostly tolerate Lizzie, but wouldn't let her eat in their presence. I tried feeding everyone in their crates, but it didn't work so well. I tried feeding Lizzie in her crate outside the pen, but the boys howled in jealousy, even with food available to them. Here's a very short-lived experiment of feeding Lizzie inside the crate, inside the pen. The boys are still so jealous that they demand Lizzie's food, even though there is identical food on the floor all around them:
Poor Lizzie! Here you can see she is worried that I might put her down in the pen with the boys:
While Max would like nothing better than to go right back in:
"But I promise I don't have to pee-pee!!":
(Also note: no more pink tummies!! They went away! We figured it would happen but we're still devastated!)
I think this was the first day we saw the robins in the yard (a pair have come to build a nest):
A sunny day. If I give the puppies my umbrella, the entire pen is shaded. I'd like to use the umbrella myself though, since the first sunny day we were out gave me a sunburn (it was March 15!):
The picture above is four days old. I only had 32 new pictures this time, because the puppies have been so much work lately that I don't have a lot of time to grab my camera anymore. Plus, they are starting to look like grown dogs now, and not changing so drastically in appearance as they did in the first three months. Oh well, I think I may have over a thousand photos already!
A chart I looked at recently said the puppies are about 8 years old in "human years" now. That sounds about right. They're a little over halfway grown in terms of weight now, though only a quarter of the way through their puppyhood in terms of time. Max might get a little bigger than their mom, while Joey will probably be about her size (9 1/2 pounds). Lizzie will be a bit smaller. Joey looks like a Jack Russell Terrier, while his siblings look more like chihuahua/rat terrier/miniature pinscher mixes, like their mom.
Speaking of their mom, here's a Ginger update:
Ginger is living with my parents now. (She's been there almost four weeks.) My mom dotes on her, and my dad, who had no say in her coming to live with them, loves her, and will proclaim his love for Ginger to anyone who mentions her. In fact, my sister said that when she went to visit a few nights ago, Ginger was clawing her leg for attention. Our mother put Ginger in her crate. Our dad came out from the bedroom. "Where's Ginger?!" he asked. "In her crate! She was bothering us." "Don't put her in the crate!" he shouted, and left the room. My mom got Ginger out and put her on her lap. My dad came back a few minutes later and went up to the crate. "Where's Ginger?!" "Here on my lap!" "GIMME!!!" He took Ginger into the bedroom and held her to his chest while he watched TV!
Ginger also enjoys sitting underneath the overgrown rosebushes in the yard (giant, elephant-sized things) and waiting intently for rats to come out of their burrows. My mother will call me at night upset because she wants to go to bed but Ginger is still under the rosebush!! I gave her a few suggestions, but the beauty of it is, she's no longer my problem! Not a bad life for a little doggie who was lost, lonely, hungry, and pregnant on that cold night back in November.
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