Take it to the Max: New Arrival
Created | Updated Aug 21, 2011
New Arrivals
We had some unusual house guests this week: Thandie the cocker spaniel, and her litter of 5 new-born puppies!
Thandie's owner had booked her annual family holiday for this week, and when she realised that the dates would clash with the imminent arrivals, we offered to look after the dogs. Thandie and Max had met before, and always got on well, but would she settle in a strange house? How would he react to the invasion of space?
We visited the pups straight after they were born, and brought Max with us. Even though he stayed outside in the garden the whole time, Thandie was very protective, and barked at him every time he came near the door. When they moved up to our home, at first we put the box with the puppies in it in the utility room, but this left a very narrow corridor for Max to get through in order to go outside to do his business, so we soon found an alternative space for the box in the downstairs loo. This meant that the door could be closed when Max was trotting past, although this was a 2-person operation for a while. After a few days, Thandie was happier to leave the pups for a few minutes, and stopped barking every time Max was near. His curiosity led him ever closer, and he would stand in the doorway almost peeking round the corner to see these little bundles of black velvet.
I'd never owned a dog when I was a child, so I'd never before experienced the joy of watching puppies grow. And boy did they grow! When they were born, I could hold each of them in the palm of my hand, but by the end of their first week they had practically doubled in size. In that space of time too they got more adventurous, and started to use their legs to crawl around the box, and they got a lot noisier. There's something quite adorable about the soft squeaky mewls of a puppy, and hearing that change into something resembling a bark.
They all looked very black to begin with, but soon different markings began to show. The four boys all had white fronts, while the only girl had some tan markings, which made some people ask if the dad was a Rottweiler! (The dad was actually the gingery cocker from next door, and Thandie herself is black and white.)
As Dai remarked, there's no such thing as an ugly puppy, and it was hard not to get too attached to them. I started giving them names: Monster was the largest, Moustache had a little white patch around his nose, Mumble reminded me of the penguin in Happy Feet, and Mustrum was named after Ridcully in the Discworld series.
The girl we'd already named, as we'd talked about keeping one pup. Research I'd done indicated that two boy dogs would tend to fight to compete to be the alpha male, so our best combination was a boy and a girl. And with only one girl in the litter our choice was easy. (It wasn't really, Dai wanted to keep Monster as well, and promised me the moon on a stick if I'd agree.)
She's named after the goddess of wisdom, in the hope that she'll have a bit more sense than her 'big brother', and shares her name with Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter series. Best of all, Minerva will be shortened to 'Minnie', and what better companion for Max?
Now, a dog is for life, not just for Christmas, so we had thought long and hard about taking on another 4-legged friend. Cost is obviously a factor: twice the vets bills, insurance, kennel costs, not to mention food. Walking two dogs isn't much more of a chore than walking one, but picking up two lots of poop, is (especially when I'm the one who ends up having to do it most of the time). And I will want to take her to dog-training and obedience classes. Max is much more settled these days (can you believe he's 4?) but he's still terrible on a lead. So I'm looking forward to having a dog who might get a bit further than bronze cerfickatick.
All too quickly our week of puppy-sitting was over, but it won't be too long before Minerva is back with us permanently. Ah the joys of house training all over again – can't wait!
