Cari Swanson

Babysitting the puppies

While Cari is away in Florida on a judging junket this weekend, I have been given the dubious honor of sleeping over with the puppies for two nights. When you consider that I have never owned a dog–or a cat, or a horse, or even a gerbil–my assignment might seem a bit odd. But, hey, I’m a neighbor and all the pets know me pretty well. Most of them even come when I call them. Except for Cupid, who has to mope about at the top of the driveway waiting for Cari to come home and must be chased, grabbed, bodily picked up and driven back to the house in the car. Very loyal, that little girl is.

Luckily for all of us, babysitting puppies consists pretty much of making sure the other canine family memebers don’t have access to the room with the puppies while allowing Mama Comet plenty of access back and forth to feed her babies. So far, I have handled this part of my job quite well.

They look so cute right now, you want to die. I was not explicitly told to play with them constantly, but I have added that to my job description anyway. Every few hours or so when they wake up from a nap, I go in and let them chew my fingers (they have tiny teeth now!) and climb all over my lap and make their teeny little growling sounds at me.

And, yes Cari, I wash my hands! Every time! My hands are shriveled up from washing so much! And although the puppies have only had two visitors so far, they have all willingly washed their hands too.

So, the puppies are safe, well-fed, happy and sleeping tons: