One week of puppy love! Day by day...

Here is our new litter of puppies, born 8/28/2011. See how much they change and grow day by day.

This guy is the biggest of the bunch. He weighed 8 ounces at birth. And just keeps growing!

Sleepy male, Day 3.

I love the way they seek each other out and snuggle.

Just before I snapped this, the boy had his arm around the girl. Swoon!

Puppies snuggling, Day 4.

Something about the quality of light in this photo captures the heaven-sent aura that surrounds them. 

The puppies went to the vet today for their dew claw removal and received a clean bill of health!

Puppies snuggling,  Day 5. They totally love each other!

This is the happiest I've seen Thatcher since we got her. Naturally affectionate, she has really become enamored with her puppies.

Thatcher is a beautiful mother! Day 6.

Curled up in an empty dish that is just the right size for the two of them. How fitting that our male and female formed their own living yin/yang symbol.

Yin/Yang,  Day 7.

Sawyer Meets His One True Love

Sawyer and Thatcher wait together at the front door.

When we brought home beautiful Thatcher (as in Becky), she was very shy in her new environment, and a little hesitant to interact with anyone. We hoped Sawyer (as in Tom) would take a shining to his new girlfriend, which he quickly did. She, however, true her namesake, was more reserved and hesitant to express her affection for him; she waited for him to make the first move. He did, by dropping his favorite toy at her feet and waiting patiently, gesturing for her to pick it up. (swoon!) The pair has been inseparable ever since. They sing at the piano together, play fetch and bring back the rope together, one on each end, eat together, and usually sleep together too. They wait for each other first thing in the morning before they go outside, and love to run out the front door together, shoulders touching, as they bound across the front lawn.

I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't seen it with my very own eyes.

Schubert with Josh, circa 1992, still wearing that ever-alert "I'm trying to understand you" expression.

Schubert (named for the famous composer) was our second sheltie. We had him for fourteen years, and his intelligence was legendary. Schubert excelled at tennis ball catching, learned the word WALK in three different languages (if you include spelling it out letter by letter), and had a great sense of humor. But what I remember most was how quickly he learned.

When my parents brought him to our home in Los Angeles for Jeff's birthday, we fell head-over-heels in love with this little furball. We surprised ourselves by our willingness to give up our big city night life and just stay home and play with the puppy. We also liked to think we were practicing our parenting skills on him.  :)

Jeff was in school at USC, and I was working full-time at UCLA, so little Schubert, at just nine or ten weeks of age, would often spend long hours alone in our ghetto apartment. He was paper trained, and did a pretty good job, but often after a long day at the office I would return home to find a puddle on the kitchen floor. One day I decided to have a little chat with him.

I looked him right in the eye, showed him the puddle, and said, "Schubert, every time you make a puddle, I have to clean it up. I have to walk over here and get the rag..." (I walked him over to wear the rag was hanging, took the rag off the hook), "then I have to wet it in the sink and wipe up the puddle, and then I have to rinse it out." (I went through the motions of these steps as well.) He looked at me with this adorable cocked head like he was desperately trying to understand every single word of my little lecture.

The very next day I came home from work, and at first I thought my lecture had gone in one ear and out the other, because there was the usual tell-tale puddle on the kitchen floor. But (I kid you not!) little Schubert had gone to some extraordinary effort, and somehow taken the rag off the hook and set it on the floor for me, right next to his puddle! I was completely amazed that he had paid so much attention, and through his little puppy filter had done whatever he could to make my job easier! That exchange completely endeared me to him.

All I Really Need to Know About Mothering I Learned From Our Shelties

• Wake everybody up with wet, sloppy kisses.

• Circle the house periodically to make sure your loved ones are all safe and accounted for.

• Go nuts if someone escapes the house without telling you.

• Hoard treats.

• Be gentle.

• Take naps.

• Listen intently (even if you don’t understand a word they’re saying).

• Make sure your bark (an upbeat attention-getter) is worse than your bite (gentle, playful).

• Herd the family into the kitchen for mealtimes and activities.

• Constantly look back over your shoulder to be sure they’re still following you.

• Tolerate LOTS of chaos and silliness.

• Good-naturedly allow everyone in the family to maul you to death

• When somebody wants to be with you, make them the center of your universe.

• Sit vigilantly and show concern when somebody’s sick.

• Run to the door with joy whenever somebody comes home.

• Alert everyone if there’s an unfamiliar intruder.

• Take advantage of every opportunity to snuggle.

• Play with the kids, indoors and out.

• Put up with lots of teasing and hyperactivity.

• Maintain a ready sense of adventure at all times.

• Give loved ones a luxuriant bedtime pedicure. :)

Most important of all:

If people forget about you, ignore you, tease you, leave you out, and maybe even step on your toes...

Love them anyway.