Pictures

Today we worked on "line up for pictures"-this is the best that they could do.

What can I say? It's been a long day. That's me and Donegal (aka "Splash") taking a well deserved nap. Staff was kind enough to take lots of pictures. What follows is some of the highlights.Lunch time!

Here I am observing lunch and naps. Splash (black dot on his tail) seems to be a camera hog.

Above you see Limerick sleeping on my paw.

Here's another shot of lunch time/nap time.

And a close-up

And an extreme close-up

And naps-the boy with the blue marking is Bono. You may have noticed a pattern in the names. When I came to live with my staff, I came with a green collar with shamrocks. Camby/Melvin referred to me as her "Irish" dog. (not sure why) and my current staff is very "Irish identified" plus the last two St. Patrick's Days I have either had puppies of have been expecting puppies, so the theme for this year's litter is Irish names. There will be official portraits later, but the boys are named Limerick, Declan, Donegal (who will always be known as Splash owing to the circumstances of his birth) Brennan, Finnegan, and Bono. The girls are Roisin, Dara, Maeve, and Callaghan

Did you know?

As I have stated before, the folks from Helping Paws are wonderful. They are extremely knowledgeable about all that I have gone through since January, they are great at whelping puppies and extremely nice to my staff. Honestly, I don't have enough room to list all the good things that they do.

But did you know that they are excellent photographers too? They took these pictures:

http://www.helpingpawsinc.blogspot.com

Honestly, I was going to steal them and post them here, but anybody that can make a girl look that good during a whelping deserves all the credit they can get!

The Big Event

Finally- today was the day! And it is an auspicious day at it is Brandon's birthday too. (Brandon resides with my former staff member, and he turned 15 today)

I am proud to announce the addition of 10 new puppies to the Helping Paws family. The first puppy ( a boy) arrived at 12:48 this afternoon, and the last puppy (a girl) was delivered at 9:04 PM. In the interrim, and additional 8 puppies arrived for a total of 10 (6 boys, 4 girls). Many thanks to the Helping Paws staff for there usual excellent work. (I think they were happy to have the puppies come during the day and be done a reasonable time.)

I am understandably tired, so this is all for tonight.

The "Before" Picture

This is Faith (on the left) and I last Friday right after out X-rays. Though I managed to hide our camera from my staff, one of the Helping Paws people was able to take this picture.

Way to go Faith!

Faith is proud to announce that that she is a new mom as of Monday. Pictures here: www.faithhp.com

Getting Closer

My staff is on pins and needles this week as my due date approaches. Technically I am due Saturday, but you never know. Last Friday I had my X-ray and the whelping box arrived and was set up. I also received numerous boxes of towels. Sorry no pictures as the camera was full of pictures of the cat and quite honestly, it didn't seem like as big a deal this time. Special thanks to our newest staff member (I call him #5) for help in setting up the whelping box. And a VERY special thanks to the Helping Paws donor that donated the laundry detergent. Puppies are messy and generate lots of laundry. In fact, staff has already been practicing their laundry drills.

You may be wondering about the lack of pictures. Well. quite frankly I am huge and don't want to be photographed. If you want to see pictures of a pregnant dog, head on over to Faith's blog :)

Casting Changes for Season II

I am pleased to anounce that the (offscreen) role of "puppy-daddy" will be played by Truman this year. You can see him here http://teddybeargoldens.com/?80bf2cd0

Other than that change (and new puppies, of course), there are no further changes contemplated in the cast and crew here at Cheers. My staff will, of course, be back. And I must tell you that they are A LOT calmer this time around. And the excellent folks from Helping Paws will be back, as well as Melvin. (thank goodness for that-with Faith and I due two days apart, its nice to know that my former staff is still willing to help out)

So there you have it. As for me-I am doing fine. Getting lots of regular exercise and sleep. Lots and lots of sleep. Oh, and the best part? Staff has increased my food and I have heard that I get yogurt starting next week. I can't wait!