PUPPY PERIL AND PLAY

Truly there is nothing more heart warming than babies...  foals, puppies and kittens...  God they are cute!  I could watch them play for hours with each new encounter providing me the most delightful gift.  Personally, to watch them experience snow for the first time enamored me...  tip toeing, then the big run into a long slide and the confused look until it becomes a game.  So precious and so much fun!

Love them to death... that is until their second trip to the vet. 

The first trip was easy... one crate and 10 six week old foxhound pups in a big old Suburban.  Two of us lifted the crate and carried it into the vet's office...  They were confused and compliant...  poor little things.  Two hours of time = weighed, vacinated, healthy and happy pups.  And, at the end of the day, two handlers sipping a bit of Dunkin' and havin' a bit o' puppy love.  It was a good day.

Cut to last night ...  8 eleven week old foxhound pups heading to the vet's for their last shots...  LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

First...  how do you get them there?  Barricade the Suburban?  No, they can climb and jump...  Use the Honda?  Uh, no...  visualize minor chaos and distruction.  You see, these were not the compliant babies that we took the first time.  These pups are pre-teen FOXHOUNDS...  rough and ready to roll. 

It was a circus of immense proportions.  This little gang of hooligans can squirm and escape like Hoodini in his prime.  The final push...  four pups, one crate, two adults, and one torn jacket...  it was like a carnival game...  push one in and three came out.  Finally, using my head (and not really my brains) and left shoulder as a barrier to the bulging pup pack, we threw the last one in, shut the door and off we went.

Opening the door, upon arrival, was sadly comical...  the bold, bulging, barking pup pack that left with us arrived sadly subdued, wet with purged puppy food waiting patiently for their release.  Three hours after beginning this party and one happier trip home, we returned with eight happy, newly vacinated, healthy pups.

Foxhounds run, foxhounds pack, foxhounds hunt...  To end on a happy note, we invited the pre-teens to reconnect to their rough and ready roots...  to run and play in the indoor...  maybe hunting for one of Jonah's chipmunks or two.

Their handlers?  We were just trying to reconnect to the sanity of the day just before that trip...  Babies are so precious but oh so much work! 

Handle all of them with care and laugh like a hyena...  makes it all better!