They say that happiness is a warm puppy. Well, if so, someone wanted me to be very very very very happy.
Yesterday morning, as I was getting ready to go out and teach two seminars (one in the morning and one in the afternoon), we heard a noise outside our apartment door as if someone was mistreating a dog. When my husband opened the door, imagine his surprise when he found a box containing a pillow, blanket, and four puppies.
Yes, they were adorable. Each little brown puppy had a beautiful little puppy face and cute little puppy ears and they were little rascals, biting at each other and rolling over and chasing one another and they put on quite a show.
But I had to leave and my husband, unfortunately, was stuck with the puppies all day.
My daughters advertised them on our local community email list. One daughter came over and took digital pictures and my son posted them on the web. When I got home, the house was a nursery. All over the living room there were puppies, playing running, and yes, doing other things that people don’t like done on their living room floor.
A friend came over and took one of the puppies. Of course, she wasn’t sure whether she could keep the puppy because her husband is not a big dog fan. So last night, we had only (only!) three puppies. We put them in the garden room behind the house and when we got up this morning, they had availed themselves of all of its facilities. My husband held them and petted them and fed them and even cleaned up the mess. But the problem remained: what to do with them?
We understood that if we called the local city vet, they would take the puppies, but if the puppies weren’t adopted fairly quickly, they would be euthanized. We certainly didn’t want that to happen. We contacted the local self-proclaimed selfless, self-sacrificing, animal-loving veterinarian who said that yes, he would take the puppies for a fee of about $40 a puppy to cover the walking and food until he found them homes. We called number of animal rescue organizations. Funny how they always do great work when they’re collecting for charity, but when you actually need them to rescue an animal, they become singularly unhelpful and even abusive.
My husband understood that in my current weakened state, these puppies were too much for me, so he took them first to a neighbor who had had two very large dogs and offered one to her. She snatched it up. Then he went to the local shopping center and within about two hours, the remaining two puppies had found homes.
When he returned home empty-handed, I declared him my hero for life! Maybe real happiness is a husband who is totally devoted to you….
