Puppy love

I teased you last time about puppies and haven’t had the chance to fill you in as our breeder, much like my baby in our latest ultrasound, is simply not co-operating.

But yes, we are getting a puppy…AND a baby. Within the same 12 months. Yes. It’s true. Now before you start your rants and raves, believe me I have heard it all before. But Alan woke up one morning and said he simply could not live another day without a best friend, and I said I simply could not live a day without him, and so came Shasta. That’s her breeder-given name. We’re working on a fancier one and I joke around that while Alan did not have a single baby name in mind (Maddison does not count), he had 10-20 ready-to-go for our new beloved dog. I joke that he is more excited about this 3 week old pup than he is about our baby. I joke, but as you all know, there’s an element of truth to every joke. Last week he said that I can have the baby if he can have the dog. Hmmmmm….reality check en route? I think the stork is bringing a whole lot more than a little bean this Christmas, don’t you all?

So we settled on a comfort retriever. A comfort what? Let me tell you. It’s a relatively new breed of dog that’s so cute it’ll eat your heart up on sight. There’s only one that we know of in San Francisco and the breeder jokes that she knows everywhere PJ’s been because she gets calls from interested potential owners saying they saw him waiting outside the gym, dry cleaners, book store…you get the drift. So her mommy (Virginia) and daddy (Teddy) are both comfort retrievers too, making her a second gen, but way back when (ok, only two generations ago) a golden retriever got it on with a cocker spaniel and hey presto, we have a miniature (oh, about 32 pounds) golden.

For now, while she’s being weaned, I get daily weather reports from Alan so we know how she’s faring in South Dakota and he carries her photo in his wallet and whips it out proudly at parties. I am not joking. What beloved Shasta is going to do to our extensive and unrelenting travel plans is another question altogether – putting a diaper on her little bottom and carrying her in a sherpabag goes beyond a serious cramping of my style.

I’ll put a photo up of darling Shasta as soon as I get one, so that you can all get your orders in. And vote on a name.

Much wet snouts, Lucinda