A little over a month ago, Jewell brought home a puppy she found wandering the street near our house. She (the dog, not my wife) was covered in fleas and burrs from wandering through the weeds in a field next door. We cleaned her up, brought her to the vet, got her shots, etc. all the good things she needed. We house-broke her and started to train her. She was a really fun and smart little puppy. We called her Ginger, after Ginger Rogers, because she used to dance and prance around. We also called her "The Piglet" because of her little curly pigtail, the way she would grunt when we would pet her belly, and, well, because she looked a little like a pig. As much as we liked the piglet, I knew we were going to give her up because the idea of traveling back to the states with THREE kennels instead on two, and hopefully at least one child, and my wife, is daunting to say the least. I would have to hire someone to travel with us to help us out. So the piglet was given to one of my guys at work and he and his wife are in love with the little beast.
My wife, who didn't like dogs, missed the piglet. So she prayed that God would provide another puppy and then contrived to make her prayers come true by going over to the piglet's old home and playing with the other puppies until the owner came out and offered her one. Answered prayer, right? Well this second puppy wasn't as cool as the first and ran away three times back to it's old home. The last time we said, "Fine, be free, no more food from us."
But! The day after Jewell made the self-fulfilling prayer and got us another (#2) puppy, I had my own puppy rescue experience (#3). As I was driving into work in the rain, the car in front of me swerved around a white rag laying in the road. When it drove by and splashed through the puddle that the rag was laying in, the rag picked it's little, white head up. I stopped, verified that the rag was indeed a puppy, checked the puppy for trauma, and turned around and brought her home. She was no more than two weeks old, her eyes were just opened, and she was shivering cold in the rain.
She's ours now. Her name is alternately Puddles (which she makes frequently) or Mizu, which is Japanese for "water." She is about a month old and we are just about done weaning her. Bottle feeding a puppy is mostly fun. Diapers would make life easier. She slept through the night last night.
We bring her with us to the Hansen Christian Center on Friday and Tuesday nights and she is adored by everyone. Mike Thompson said last night, "Cute is an understatement." The evidence is plain. You can just see the champagne ring around her left eye (that blemish will keep me from making her a sacrifice later in her life, I'm sure). She has begun playing, growling, attacking my hands and her little hedgehog toy. She sleeps wherever she is when the mood hits. Just like her other major bodily functions. Whatever happens, this one is ours.
