They’re doing well, Dinah’s puppies, and growing so fast I can almost see the size increase as it happens, especially around the belly. Dinah is a good mom and has been very attentive, but now that her brood is approaching 3 weeks of age she’s spending more and more time away from them.
Can’t say that I blame her! Eight pups latched on and sucking for all they’re worth has to be draining in more ways than lactation can account for. There’s nothing subtle about a bottomless pit o’ pup, and there are a lot of those here, and a few hours of peace and quiet in the garden or a friendly romp with another adult dog must feel like a little bit of heaven to a mother of eight.
(I know I could sound so much more professional about all this dog and breeding stuff if I referred to Dinah as a bitch, but I just can’t bring myself to do that. She’s such a sweet girl.)
Voracious as these guys are, solid food is already relished as you can see, and because of that, I’m guessing, their mother is less interested in cleaning up after them. (Can you blame her? I am SO glad we humans don’t have to tidy our children the same way other animals do. Sure, it would save on wipes, but … blech!) With proliferating piles of puppy poop plopping on my porch, we’re moving the whole family down to the kennel today. It won’t be as easy to schmooze a pooch when they’re not right under foot, but having them elsewhere will freshen the air up here considerably and provide me with a good excuse to take a longer break more often.
I’ve taken some shots this morning, but they’re not great. The pups are almost more than a handful now, so it’s a lot harder to get a decent photo of them.
A good mom
Eyes open, but is anybody home?
A handful, and with big feet
Solid food!
A collection of my short stories:
I'm in this one, too ...
And I'm in here, as well ...
Paradise Preoccupied 
awwww…
what was the story with Pippen? Remember that one-eyed Australian shep. that we had for about eleven days in 1978? That’s right. Pippen. A week and a half… then he was just kinda… gone.
Cute puppies. So many cute puppies all around you. And kids. And exploding granite. Cute puppies good. Exploding granite is expoding granite and probably not good.
Jaren,
His name was Tucker, and he was nuts … totally insane.
Living in such close proxculdsacimity to the Alexander brood will have that effect (affect? both?) on a naive one-eyed pup from down under.
I miss you, though, far more than… Tucker, was it? And who dubbed him with that moniker? THAT’S what pushed him over the edge of Ayer’s Rock.
There was a Pippen somewhere along the line, though, wasn’t there? That is ringing bells.
I miss you, too …
Two, actually.
One was the dog in “Ordinary People” (portrayed brilliantly by a canine actor called Scraps).
The other was the dog that was eaten, or at least bitten, by a rubber shark in the Steven Speilberg opus “Jaws”.
Every time I watch the Jaws I comment to anyone within earshot that I once had a dog named Pippen for eleven days in 1978. This often leads to debates over whether Elvis died in 77 or 78. Since I neither know nor care, I become feverishly dedicated to whatever position I have taken during that particular viewing of the shark movie.
Side note: My friend Luca is Dino de Laurentis’s grandson.
King Kong gonna be bigga danna Jaws.
Here endeth my chatachism.
No … I meant a dog called Pippen that belonged to us for a while, but I’m sure the one-eyed Oz dog was Tucker.
Relatives of the rich and famous should stick together … ?
Ha!
Come back soon.
Wow, That puppy is totally cute, looks like I really wanna hug him (or her, may be?)