Puppy Love
My assistant director's apartment mate's dog has just had a litter of nine puppies, eight of which have survived. Tonight when I picked him up to take him to the theater I berated an invite out of him to see them. (Well, really! To talk about new, cute puppies and not show them -- wouldn't you berate someone too?) It was amazing.
I walked into their thin duplex to be greeted by some sort of thin, medium-sized, chocolate brown dog, eager to say hello. It was one of those dogs who wags her tail so vigorously that she actually ends up wagging her whole rear end. Thus as she comes up to you, she develops this wiggle waggle walk of joy to see you. Behind her came another dog, thin, one or one and a half years old, a short haired Siberian Huskie, tannish red and white with the Huskie blue eyes. She was jumping and sniffing and nuzzling to be petted, eager to welcome my assistant director and whomever he'd brought in with him -- still very much a puppy herself. I was introduced to her as the mother.
We climbed the thin stairs (ugh, stairs!) and went up to his apartment mate's room. She'd already gone into "the sell." I've just come to look but at this point, she's so used to people being interested in adopting that she's giving me info on how many have been taken and how many haven't. I note to myself how un-puppy like the whole place feels. It's too quite. It's too neat. The mother is too normal-dog-like for there to be eight puppies there.
We enter her small bedroom, a small bedroom like any other -- no puppies to be immediately seen, not a sound at our appearance. Are there puppies here at all? Is this some sort of puppy scam?
We step around the bed and only then do I see the dog cage and, in it, eight sleeping puppies, so teenie, their ears back, their eyes not even open yet. Of course, I think, I was not used to and not ready for puppies this young. These were not rambunctious energy fur balls. They were mere days old.
I marveled at them, and the mother came up behind me. Before coming into the house I had wondered how she would react to me, a stranger, this close to her new brood. She seemed much more interested in more petting than anything else, nuzzling my hand again and again. As the apartment mate continued with her growingly annoying cant on whose colors were more dominant, the mother's or the unknown father's, I just kept staring at these still, occasionally squirmy things ... so small. My assistant director said they had been considerably smaller just a couple of days ago. The apartment mate agreed. Imagine that. To their eyes, they'd grown.
One of the puppies started to whine, if you can call it that. It wasn't quite developed enough to be a whine, but that's what it's going to be when he gets bigger. I thought for a moment that he was having a nightmare. He kicked and mini-whined a bit. He did this just a couple of times before his mother left my hand, strolled into the cage, almost stepped on one or two, and flopped down at the far, thin end. Instantly the whiner and a couple others started digging under her to get to teats. And it was work, 'cause, as I said, she had chosen one of the thinner sides of the rectangle and thus didn't allow herself enough room to really stretch out and be available. That really bugged me. It was just wrong, an inefficient use of space. I found myself a little annoyed that my hosts had housed the new family in a structure with such spatial disadvantages. Still, some of the puppies worked for teats while the mother licked one or two who seemed more interested in sleeping.
I was beguiled seeing instincts at work. You see, I had read about this phenomenon as a child and seen depictions of it but had never seen a mother dog nursing a new brood of pups before. It was quite moving. No lactation coaches, no Lamaze classes, no What to Expect When You're Expecting Puppies, she walked into the room and one of them, what? heard her? smelled her? and all of a sudden petting time is over and it's time to lie down and have them nurse. Astounding. And if it's not immediately to you, I fear I won't be able to explain why it was and is with me. I can't stop thinking about it.
I'd love to adopt one of those puppies. I have no pets currently and have not lived with a dog since high school. I love them so and miss them terribly. Still, my apartment is small, I'm surrounded by asphalt and sidewalk, I'm never here (... and my upstairs neighbor is having sex again. Really, dear? It's a school night! I mean there's living a healthy, normal life and then there's just flaunting how much you're getting. Well enjoy it now. You won't be in your twenties forever.), it wouldn't be fair to get a dog. Plus if I got a puppy now, it would be with me until my 60s (if we both live that long). That's a long time.
Still they were darned cute, and if I got one, a year from now it could be sleeping beside me as I wrote this blog. You'd like that, wouldn't you?
I walked into their thin duplex to be greeted by some sort of thin, medium-sized, chocolate brown dog, eager to say hello. It was one of those dogs who wags her tail so vigorously that she actually ends up wagging her whole rear end. Thus as she comes up to you, she develops this wiggle waggle walk of joy to see you. Behind her came another dog, thin, one or one and a half years old, a short haired Siberian Huskie, tannish red and white with the Huskie blue eyes. She was jumping and sniffing and nuzzling to be petted, eager to welcome my assistant director and whomever he'd brought in with him -- still very much a puppy herself. I was introduced to her as the mother.
We climbed the thin stairs (ugh, stairs!) and went up to his apartment mate's room. She'd already gone into "the sell." I've just come to look but at this point, she's so used to people being interested in adopting that she's giving me info on how many have been taken and how many haven't. I note to myself how un-puppy like the whole place feels. It's too quite. It's too neat. The mother is too normal-dog-like for there to be eight puppies there.
We enter her small bedroom, a small bedroom like any other -- no puppies to be immediately seen, not a sound at our appearance. Are there puppies here at all? Is this some sort of puppy scam?
We step around the bed and only then do I see the dog cage and, in it, eight sleeping puppies, so teenie, their ears back, their eyes not even open yet. Of course, I think, I was not used to and not ready for puppies this young. These were not rambunctious energy fur balls. They were mere days old.
I marveled at them, and the mother came up behind me. Before coming into the house I had wondered how she would react to me, a stranger, this close to her new brood. She seemed much more interested in more petting than anything else, nuzzling my hand again and again. As the apartment mate continued with her growingly annoying cant on whose colors were more dominant, the mother's or the unknown father's, I just kept staring at these still, occasionally squirmy things ... so small. My assistant director said they had been considerably smaller just a couple of days ago. The apartment mate agreed. Imagine that. To their eyes, they'd grown.
One of the puppies started to whine, if you can call it that. It wasn't quite developed enough to be a whine, but that's what it's going to be when he gets bigger. I thought for a moment that he was having a nightmare. He kicked and mini-whined a bit. He did this just a couple of times before his mother left my hand, strolled into the cage, almost stepped on one or two, and flopped down at the far, thin end. Instantly the whiner and a couple others started digging under her to get to teats. And it was work, 'cause, as I said, she had chosen one of the thinner sides of the rectangle and thus didn't allow herself enough room to really stretch out and be available. That really bugged me. It was just wrong, an inefficient use of space. I found myself a little annoyed that my hosts had housed the new family in a structure with such spatial disadvantages. Still, some of the puppies worked for teats while the mother licked one or two who seemed more interested in sleeping.
I was beguiled seeing instincts at work. You see, I had read about this phenomenon as a child and seen depictions of it but had never seen a mother dog nursing a new brood of pups before. It was quite moving. No lactation coaches, no Lamaze classes, no What to Expect When You're Expecting Puppies, she walked into the room and one of them, what? heard her? smelled her? and all of a sudden petting time is over and it's time to lie down and have them nurse. Astounding. And if it's not immediately to you, I fear I won't be able to explain why it was and is with me. I can't stop thinking about it.
I'd love to adopt one of those puppies. I have no pets currently and have not lived with a dog since high school. I love them so and miss them terribly. Still, my apartment is small, I'm surrounded by asphalt and sidewalk, I'm never here (... and my upstairs neighbor is having sex again. Really, dear? It's a school night! I mean there's living a healthy, normal life and then there's just flaunting how much you're getting. Well enjoy it now. You won't be in your twenties forever.), it wouldn't be fair to get a dog. Plus if I got a puppy now, it would be with me until my 60s (if we both live that long). That's a long time.
Still they were darned cute, and if I got one, a year from now it could be sleeping beside me as I wrote this blog. You'd like that, wouldn't you?
posted by - caj at 1:42 AM
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