Puppy Love

Update: if you still don't have my xmas gift. Click here!

I hath been smote.

Our home had an unexpected visitor yesterday, and she left a lasting impression on me. Her name is, as yet, undecided, for she is a new addition to our friend's family, but she was the cutest visitor our happy home has yet welcomed.

This little puppy, all of 11 weeks old, looked to my untrained eye, like a part dalmatian, part pitbull, part something else kind of small. She was speckled like baby dalmatians are with two adorably floppy black ears, and she was just delicious.

As many (ok everyone who knows me) know, I have a small dog problem. I love dogs. I stalk dogs. I go to dog adopt-a-thons and ogle dogs. I do not have a dog. And until we sort out whether or not our landlady would approve a dog and what we would do with our dog when we traveled, we will not have a dog. So I am the crazy dog lady who follows your dogs. But, strangely enough, I had never spent this much time with a tiny puppy until yesterday.

They are even better than their advertisements. They make little puppy sounds and when they open their mouths they have little milk teeth; they smell sweet and are oh so soft; and, best of all, this one just oozed love. While her daddy was in the yard tiring out her older brother, a charming but overenergetic pitrador (labrapit?), she just hung out in the kitchen with me, looking up at me with those eyes.

Later, when it looked like she was tired, devoted partner made a fatal mistake: he made her a little puppy bed out of one of our beach towels and swaddled her in the corner. Why he was foolish enough to do that in my presence, one can never know, but his considerate affection was palpable betraying his puppy love vulnerability. And she looked so cute napping in our beach towel.

This morning as we were readying ourselves for the day I asked devoted partner how long he thought I could carry a mastiff in a bag (thereby being allowed to take it on public transport), and if he thought I could pass off an army duffel as a bag. He thought I had maybe eight weeks of being able to conceal a mastiff on the subway.

I know well that this Christmas will not see a small dog object with a ribbon round its neck, but snuggling with someone else's new puppy served as a reminder that the ending of my days of puppylessness will be on the agenda more and more as we explore non-urban living.