Excerpts from my Journal from 2001: 

7/8/2001

 Sunday. I got an email from Randy in PA today–the puppies were born! Eight, but one was stillborn. He hasn’t had a chance to tally the sexes yet, but he sent me a photo of the happy mom and family. They’re so little. Of course they are, only hours old in the picture, but … tiny. They even still have their full tails and everything … so, let’s see, eight weeks from today is Sept 2nd….

7/9/2001

Some bad news today about Tawney’s puppies. Only one is a girl, and she’s already spoken for. I’m so disappointed. But still, surprisingly quickly, we’ve sort of considered a boy puppy and decided that maybe a boy would be nice anyway. Bigger, yes, but maybe different isn’t such a bad thing? Certainly we’ve come up with more boy-names than girl-names (Edgar and Chappy head the list). What surprises me most is that Mom seems to have no trouble considering a 35-40 lb dog when 2 months ago the thought of a 30-lb female was big. But we believe in the fate thing–maybe someone’s trying to tell us something.

7/13/2001

 Randy sent me a photo of the puppies and a ruler to give me an idea how big they are. Looks like about 6″ from tail to shoulder, give or take. Either way, tiny.

7/28/2001

I got an email from Randy … we’ll be getting one of Tawney’s boys. Chappy, it is! Mom and I will still go out on 8/11 to pick him out, but no more mystery aboug gender or name. I can stop referring to NewPuppy.

7/29/2001

 Randy emailed me two pictures of the puppies at 3 weeks old. What a difference! They look twice the size they were as newborns and no longer all fit in a row to nurse. Their coats are starting to show wavy vs curly fur, too. Even the curly ones won’t be VERY curly any time soon, but they’ve got a lot more crimp to their coats than their smoother siblings. Randy also said that in certain lights you can see the different browns, too (liver or chocolate). They aren’t quite walking yet, he said, but crawling–doggy paddling as he put it–swimming along on their bellies, but they can stand and are practicing walking. Sweet.

8/1/2001

Okay, it’s the oddest thing. Randy sent me a picture of the puppies eating their first meal of solid food (puppy food, oatmeal, and water). It’s adorable–they’re standing, and everything! The first picture I’ve seen where they haven’t been a puppy pile heaped around Tawney. But–and this is the odd part–now that I’ve seen Chappy (whichever pup he is) looking like a Puppy and not just an infant … i almost miss him. I haven’t even met him yet, but some part of me almost expects him to be around somewhere.

8/11/2001

So, we saw Chappy! What a cutie. The drive was about 320 miles, 6 hours. We barely saw Buddy–he gave a friendly, enthusiastic hello, but that was about it. Tawney, on the other hand, was a sweetheart. mellow, very calm. Every time she went into the puppy pen, all the puppies practically attacked her–crowding under her to nurse at every opportunity. Then she’d move away and leave two to four puppies lying on his back or side, looking all surprised. “Drat! She’s gone again. Where’d she go?” She was really friendly, though, and we kept petting her while we oohed and aahed over the puppies.

Ah, the puppies! Tiny–about 5 lbs, maybe? Easily lifted in one hand, with all four legs outstretched. (“Whoa!”) Tiny little heads and noses about 1/2″ long, with a little, button, brown nose about the size of my fingertip. Short little legs with paw-pads about the size of a dime. Soft, puppy coats. Tiny ears, maybe the size of a quarter. Fuzzy blue baby puppy eyes. They nails are tiny little lace-crochet hooks, needlelike,s harp, and curved. The teeth are coming and in and pretty needle-sharp, too.

And then, how to pick one? I didn’t have a love at first sight moment, but they were all so cute! Finally, we picked out two and them around us on the floor–though by that time they were pretty tired and just wanted to snooze. Chappy’s the one I ended up holding and couldn’t put down. He kept snuggling his nose in and snoozing. Randy marked the inside of his ear with red marker….

8/26/2001

 Well, we brought Chappy home yesterday. The biggest news is–we didn’t get the puppy we’d picked out. We went to Randy’s and went inside. The puppies were all piled together and just waking up when we walked in. All those bright little faces. But one of them didn’t want to wake up–he ran away into the corner as the others started to untangle themselves to be charming. And that’s the one we’d picked. I managed to catch him and lift him, but he squirmed to get away. When I put him back in the pen, he ran over to the wall and just lay there while one of his brothers lied down on top of him. There was no way we could bring that puppy home. …

I narrowed it down to two–one of the big, wavy-furred calmer boys, and a smaller curly-coat who was more active. It was so hard choosing between them. Really hard. Finally though, went for the calm wavy-coat. Gave Randy his check and headed for home. We let him sit in our laps for the whole drive. He slept almost the entire drive and the only thing that bothered him was the sun shining in his face.

 We got him home and he immediately started exploring. No clinging like Katy did. He did NOT like his crate and does NOT like being alone yet. He has quite a voice. He cried during supper when he was in his pen and he definitely cried in his crate last night … but when I woke up and could actually see that adorable little face … it’s so cute. His paw pads are about the size of a quarter now, and his ears about the size of an egg. he’s stretched out asleep now, just fitting lengthwise inside the base of the kitchen chair. He tried getting up the step through the front door and got stuck, his hips were level with the doorsill. And every time he sits down on our floors, his hips slide out from under him until he’s on his stomach. And did I mention the puppy bumbling run he’s got, his paws flying in all directions and his middle swaying from side to side? Precious!

(Hey, you know … a Mom can’t help but feel a little indulgent on her boy’s birthday….)

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