first efforts

Finally, satisfaction for all your animal cuteness needs!

Many years ago I listened to this hilarious piece from This American Life about a man's failed attempts to create "The Puppy Channel," a cable channel that would show only puppies: all puppies, all the time. It was an idea ahead of its time, perhaps, but strikingly prescient.

To wit: I am pleased to bring you my current favorite blog, which my beloved and I affectionately refer to as The Puppy Blog. It chronicles the being-born-and-cuteness adventures of a litter of golden retriever pups, eight of them to be exact, who will be trained to work as service dogs with the Helping Paws organization in Minnesota. Thanks to a tip from my sister-in-law, who is training a Helping Paws pup of her own (the fabulous and occasionally naughty Belle), I am now All About the Puppies. The puppies are four weeks old now and my beloved and I have been closely watching their every move since birth. We are quite firmly addicted to these daily doses of cuteness, sending each other e-mails like, "Their eyes are open, their eyes are open!" and "Did you see the pictures of them eating?"

The pictures of them eating, by the way, are hilarious.

Cats don't like parties

Wren undercover

So my beloved and I are sitting on my balcony just now, enjoying a break between the afternoon and night games in the NCAA tournament -- having a little happy hour wine, chatting about this and that -- when the dogs in the apartment begin barking and growling like all get-out. Not good -- hey, we have neighbors! So we go inside and come upon this:

Puppies at the GAC(K!)

This week marks the big puppy experiment: my beloved brought his dogs to Nashville with him. This was initially my suggestion, because I feel such deep guilt at the amount he has to spend to board all three beasties at the ken.., er, spa. So it was decided that Cecil Cat would go to said spa for the week and that Wren and Madison would hop into the CRV and head north to NashVegas. The dogs don't take long trips in the car, or stay at other people's houses, so this whole thing has been quite an experiment. And so far, so good. They did great in the car and seem to be adapting nicely to life in the GAC(K!) (that's Gated Apartment Complex for those of you new to the blog). Madison has been a bit anxious about the disruption, but because she's always a bit anxious about everything we're not too worried. And Wren has adapted quite well by doing what most of us do when we move to a new place: finding analogues to our old favorites in the new place. For example, Wren likes to lie behind the couch at his house. My couch is up against the wall, much to his initial dismay. But hey! There's a chair that he can sit behind, and so he does that instead. Ahh, normalcy! As for the puppies' favorite thing about the GAC(K!), it would have to be a toss-up between the "pet exercise area" just below my balcony, where they can smell the smells of the poop of a thousand dogs, or the balcony itself, which provides a magisterial view of said smelly place and allows them to bark and growl at the human and canine masses below from a safe distance. (It's very easy to be brave when you're three floors up).

Behold: The Wren!

Cecil debunks the "cats are clean" myth

Springtime for Madison dog

Dogs vs. cats

Dogs use couches to sleep on; cats use people.

 

Nap time!

Eye spy