Adventures in Fostering

We took our plethora o' puppies to get their booster shots this morning. I'm still recovering. If we continue fostering, it may be wise to trade in my minivan for an animal control truck. Just for convenience sake.

Large endeavors, such as piling 6 squirmy, squealing, furry beings into the car for a road trip cause me anxiety. I almost hyperventilated planning it all out last night. I calmed myself down a bit by breaking the enormous task into smaller ones, making it feel a little more manageable. 

Step 1: Make sure crates are clean.

Step 2: Bring crates around to the front of the house to await their passengers. 

Step 3: Open garage door and extract puppies from their pen one by one for the transfer, swiftly using a puppy wipe on each of them so they'll smell fresh for their appointment. 

I made it all the way to Step 3 before my carefully drawn out plan went to, well, the dogs.  As I punched in the code and the garage door began to rise, I saw a little nose peek its way out. The puppies weren't in their pen. They were loose in the garage. I believe this scene from Ben most accurately depicts what happened next when all the puppies flooded out.

I grabbed what puppies I could, then started screaming for Reese. I was pretty sure Tate was still in bed. Drue goes into automatic panic mode in stressful situations involving the puppies. Reese was my only choice of helpers left. Just one problem, she wasn't coming. Apparently she was so focused on making an outfit choice, she didn't hear her mother's blood curdling cries for help. Comforting. Neither did the neighbors, thankfully. 

Drue happened to amble out and stood there as her jaw dropped. "Grab a puppy!" I hollered. "Or three!" We managed to collect them all, and my adrenaline rush enabled me to hoist cratefuls of puppies up into the van with little difficulty. 

With the girls guarding the little prisoners, I dashed back in to pluck Tate from the top bunk. "But I'm sleepy," he groaned. (When I'm frazzled my sarcastic humor has a tendency to spin out of control.) "Awww...I'm so sorry to have disturbed your slumber at 9:30 in the morning. Perhaps these terminal disease fighting boosters can wait until a more reasonable hour, so you can continue your beauty rest." 

The puppies slept peacefully the entire way. The kids were kind enough to break the silence with their bickering. Tate has discovered his outbreak of poison ivy comes in handy as a biohazard threat against his sisters. Whenever he's bothered by them, I'll hear them scream out, "Mom! Tate's rubbing his arm on me!". 

We finally made it to the shelter where the puppies were vaccinated, weighed, and updated in the system. I felt like a proud Mother introducing them all by name and giving a mini background of their personalities and their likes and dislikes. 

As we waited for more paperwork to be completed, a shelter worker came out into the lobby and started gushing over my temporary babies. "Oh, they're adorable!" she squealed. "What are they mixed with?" 

"Their Mom is border collie, but I don't think they know what the dad is," I explained. Not even thinking about the little ears of my helpers taking in everything. 

"Oh, I see," she continued. "Dad was just a wanderer, paying a visit in the night." 

Tate was petting the puppies through the crate bars and I could see the little wheels in his mind start spinning as he started putting it all together. He stood up and said softly, "Mommy, how do dogs get married?"

Oh boy. 

I felt the color rush to my cheeks and stammered, "Well, they ... ummm...see...they probably..." 

The paperwork couldn't have come off the printer at a more perfect time.  The staff ushered us out to the car with our little bundles and we drove away as I sighed, "Whew, I need a drink!"

Lucky for me, Starbucks are everywhere.