Puppies

After coming out of the vet's office dealing with the Buddha, I called my friend Kaye who is a groomer and worked at the local pet food store.  When I told her what had just gone down she said to come by the shop, she knew that the Former-Husband-Unit was working out of town and that I was alone. When I got there we shared a hug and a few tears (she had groomed the Bood many times and really liked her) and Kaye said that I needed a beer.  Of course I did, I had just put my best friend down.  So, we went and had a couple and then she said that I had to see the puppies.  What puppies?  The ones that her friend Sherry had.  Ok, but I'm not driving.  So way we go to Sherry's house to see the puppies. 
Sherry had a batch of German Shepherd puppies that were completely adorable and we got to talking and went out to where the puppies were (playing outside in an exercise pen).  They were running around in circles and one puppy kept stopping right beside me every time 'round and that is how I ended up with Niki.  Being as she wasn't ready to go just yet we had a couple of weeks with just Harley around and it broke my heart to watch her.  I'd let her out and she'd just stand on the landing, staring in to space like 'Were's my friend?'. 
When TFHU was out of town working, we had a ritual when he was home of going to the local diner for breakfast Saturday mornings.  I would scan the paper and we would talk about things that were going on when I got to the classifieds one morning shortly after putting a down payment on Niki.  Guess what I saw?  An ad for Rottweiller puppies.  I sooooo wanted another one after having the Bood.  So we made the call and went to look.  Just to look, right?  How wrong is that.  When we got to the breeder's place she only had males of her own litter, but 2 females from a bitch that she had sold to a gal in Saskatchewan who had to move and asked the breeder to move these puppies for her.  Turns out Saskatchewan had bred the bitch to a local dog who was supposed to be registered (or registerable) and he wasn't either.  OOPS.  Ok, these puppies are purebred but unregisterable.  They're also undersized.  Jazz was half the size of the breeder's boys and her sister was half the size of her.  As soon as I saw her the first thing out of my mouth was 'Jazz'.  She turned and looked at me and in typical Rotti fashion carried on her merry little way.  My heart melted and the decision was made to go back to town, get the cash and come back to pick up the puppy.  Now we have a Rotti puppy and a Shepherd puppy.  We went back, picked her up and put her behind the seat of the truck with Niki and that's when I realised exactly how small she was.  Niki was born the 8th of March and Jazz was born the 13th.  5 days difference, half the size.  Of course I had to stop at the shop and show her off to Kaye who said that she most definitely had a belly full of worms.  Yup, enough worms in her that her coat was horrid and her belly was big enough that she looked like a watermelon with feet.  Poor baby.  We slammed her with some wormer and off we toodled home.
I'll tell you, raising 2 puppies at the same time gave me a whole new appreciation of mothers of twins.  One would be over chewing on the speaker wires and the other would be relieving themself on the floor.  Which one to go after first?  Would I do it again?  In a heartbeat.  Not going to though, these two will pass about the same age and I firmly believe that they're happier with company, so I'll get another one soon and hope to heaven that the girls don't go at the same time.  I read about a guy that got a new dog every 5 years so that he had the old dog, the mid dog and the puppy; the older ones kinda showing the puppy the ropes.  Good philosophy. 
Anyway, this is a big ol' 'Happy 6th Birthday' to the girls (they even got birthday cards from the local Petsmart, how cool is that ?).


Niki



Jazz

Can you guess which is my favorite (even tough I try not to do it)?