Knocked up

Well, this is kind of embarrassing. It’s the oldest story in the book -- innocent young ingénue meets grizzled, sexy old beast. No one thinks the old boy has got it in him. (Hello? Charlie Chaplin? Tony Fucking Randall?) But 63 days later, boom -- a litter of puppies is born.

This is the drama that played out at the Cracker Compound recently. It all started about a year and a half ago. Our elderly boxer dog, who has been a wonderful pet for well over a decade, was clearly in decline. This made us all very sad. We (we being my 10-year-old daughter and myself) thought a new puppy would cheer everyone up.

We relentlessly lobbied Mr. Cracker on the issue for a few months, and eventually he caved and we got a female boxer pup to be our elderly dog’s companion and our auxiliary pet. It’ll be a new lease on life for the old boy, we figured -- a playmate to keep him young. And he’ll be a great role model for the pup, we thought. Ha!

I fully intended to get the new addition fixed, but I’ve heard it’s a good idea to let a female dog go through one cycle before doing so. (Vets seem to be divided on this issue, at least in this neck o’ the woods.) And in the 14 months or so before the younger dog reached maturity, the old dog showed no interest of that nature in her.

After all, the poor old thing is half blind and wholly deaf; he can barely stagger back and forth from his food bowl to his dog bed. He is intact (due to an over-developed sense of male solidarity on the part of Mr. C), but he (the old dog, not Mr. C) had grown so decrepit we thought sexy time was the last thing on his mind.

Boy, were we stooopit! We never saw a thing, but immediately after concluding her cycle, the young dog began to develop udders, and we knew we were in for it.

I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout whelping no puppies!

Fast forward to Sunday night. The soon-to-be-mama went into labor at 10 o’clock. I’d taken her to the vet a couple of weeks prior, so I had a general timeframe and lots of good advice. But damn. Naturally it occurred right after we’d concluded a family shindig which I’d stayed up to all hours preparing for the previous night…

Our old dog and Mr. Cracker promptly took a snooze, leaving it to me and the kiddo to act as midwives. Since I’ve given birth myself, perhaps you’d think nothing would surprise, shock or gross me out about the process. If so, you would be wrong. It was like goddamned Alien! Eraserhead, even! But we did a good job of it, if I say so myself. Even though I did throw up. Twice.

All’s well that ends well

So now we have a total of 11 boxers -- the parents plus 5 male and 4 female pups. Every single pup looks like the old man and not a thing like the mom.

I may set up a boxer cam once they get a little older. If so, I’ll let y’all know how to access it for those who are interested in such things.

Yeah, I know. There are so many unwanted dogs in the world. I do feel bad about bringing more into it, even though I’m certain I can find good homes for all. I’ve learned my lesson. Henceforth, all dogs in our house will be fixed, anthropomorphic identification on the part of certain other family members notwithstanding. But the puppies are awfully cute.

[Cross-posted at Rumproast]