Puppy Love

We have Nova as our current dog. She is a handful and a half and will get her own post in time. In some ways she is still a puppy. At around two years old, she still chews on plenty of things and gets into trouble almost every day, but she is also a tank. Not a cute cuddly puppy by any means.

My girls adore puppies, so when our neighbor's dog had puppies this summer, I kid you not, my kids were up there all the time. All. The. Time. If I ever looked around and couldn't find someone, there was a pretty good chance, they were up the hill, snuggling a puppy.

Of course, puppies take a while to grow, so the girls had months to cuddle and love on the puppies. And Robyn took a boatload of pictures, so in the course of one post, you can watch puppies grow. Let's start with the itty bitty phase. The puppies eyes are not open. They are limp little balls of heat that lay on you and nuzzle. Tinka, the mom, was such a great mom. She had seven puppies, with one cream colored one and the rest a mix of black puppies with different white markings.

Then the puppies open their eyes. They stumble around on their little legs and they interactive more, but they are still very good sleepers and snugglers.

Soon the puppies are very alert. They are still content to sit on your lap, but they want to know what is going on. And they still need their mom. Luckily Tinka is so patient.

Promptly, the puppies are little busy bodies. They are bumbling around and they can be so wiggly when you hold them. They are happy to chew on your shoes, or your moms shoes if you were smart enough to wear hers.

Now the puppies are so busy, they exhaust themselves. They are go go go and then they all crash in a pile. Sometimes you can find a Robyn in the middle of the pile. They still chew on anything, including your hair. They are ridiculously cute and it is adorable to see them snuggle with their siblings, because all too soon, they will go to different homes.

My girls were a little heartbroken as each puppy left. Luckily a couple went to neighbors so we still see them around. When the puppies got bigger, we would often find them on our doorstep exploring their world. They were always surprised and excited to see the girls, their other mothers. Such cuties. Now that it is fall, they are hardly puppies at all, but I'm glad the girls got to experience each step along the way.