Puppies

We had puppies born this last week.  Four puppies were born to our dog, a staffordshire bull terrier.  My youngest daughter and I watched them being born, along with my wife and an expert breeder.  

As I am nervous about many things, I was of course nervous about this "new event" that I , granted didnt have to do anything for, but still should be responsible if anything bad happens.  As it was, nothing bad happened. All four dogs came out with no injuries nor defects.  It all went well. I was quite surprised by the way it happened, namely that each one was born separately and all four came out over two hours.  That was new to me how that happened.  So in fact you dont have them all come out at once and the last one is the smallest and maybe defected.  They were all in separate plasmas and in fact the 4th one was not much different from the 1st. Although admittedly the first IS the biggest and developing the most and fastest   Surprisingly, the second which was born not too much later after the first seems to be "the baby" of the group.   

But what I wanted to talk about was the importance of this event for my children, particularly my younger daughter.   I ll start by saying that everyone reacts differently and not everyone is interested.  My older daughter, while she likes the dogs and dogsits for them too, wasnt greatly interested in the whole process and wasnt standing there gawking the whole time like the rest of us.  She was texting a friend.  But, thats ok, I am not mad this time.  Its not even bad.  Some people like some things and others dont.  No problem.  

But for my younger daughter it was life changing perhaps.  She loves all the dogs and as she said herself, everytime she looks at the puppies, all stress and problems disappear as they are so cute and lovable.  She wrote down notes of when each was born and how much they weighed.  Now she weighs them twice a day since their birth to see how they are growing. 

It was new for me too.  We had guinea pigs when I was growing up.  We had a dog, but it was spaid, so no puppies.  But we had guinea pig babies maybe three times a year  or more.  We had guinea pigs from when I was very young, even say 3 years old until I was well into being a teen ager.  

I cant believe now that my parents let me take a small guinea pig to nursery school (4 years old) for a show and tell. I remember quite well that I held the pig and it fell from my arms from pretty high up.  But luckily was not injured.  I guess my parents trusted me to act responsibly.  I am not sure I did. 

I had chores quite often to clean the pig cage out and frankly this did not bother me. I liked doing it.  We kept old newspapers and I would just roll up all the old stuff in the cage and put it in a waste bag and lay down new papers and cut up more papers as hiding for the pigs.  Then put in some sort of tunnel they could go through like a quaker oats cardboard container which they loved.  I think we had to clean their cage twice a week, at least once but probably more.  I dont recall that my older brother did anything to take care of the pigs, but maybe my memory is bad. At the beginning we had a huge cage which was in his room .

The point being that it was a fun responsibility for me.  Not only did I have to clean but keep their bottle filled with fresh water and clean the bottle and food pellets in their bowl and give them special food treats like corn husks or green grass or vegetable leaves.  That was always fun, to have them come running when the food was coming and watch them chomp away on the greens.  It was always nice to watch the pigs and take them out and hold them.  Realizing also that I had to make sure if I let them run around that they didnt get in any places I wouldnt be able to get them.  Or to take them outside in a portable cage and turn it over and let them eat grass.  

I think it was very helpful to my growth to be given this FUN responsibilty.  I knew they depended on me and I could give them a better happier life.  If I slacked off my responsibilties they could live in misery and even die.  But why would I slack off when it was rewarding for me?   It was fun to watch them after I had just cleaned their cage and they had new paper and a new quaker oats tunnel to run through and they would go wacko doing this running in circles going throgh the tunnel.  And squeaking as you fluffed up the new newspaper and they hid in it.  And sitting outside in the backyard in spring warm weather reading a book and having your feet on the cage as one pig munched away on the grass.  

So while this was an important responsibility, I have very fond memories of taking care of our guinea pigs and I never really thought of it as work or responsibilty although it was indeed.  Folding the laundry was work, but that is another story.  

So I hope my younger daughter finds the new responsiblity of taking care of the puppies a very fun responsibility.  I dont know what it will involve. We will probably only have them for three months, but we had the baby guinea pigs for even shorter (then we usually gave them free to a pet shop).  And yet in that period there will be things to do, such as weighing the dogs and probably for some time teaching them to walk and then taking them out for walks while we still have them.  Maybe.  It will be a good learning experience for her, as the guinea pigs were for me. In the same way it was sad for me to see the little pigs go (but many times we kept one) I am sure my daughter will cry when the puppies leave us.  But that is a learning experience too. 

In short it is important to keep pets when you have kids growing up.  I strongly recommend it.  While on one side you have to watch that your kids dont mistreat the animals and maybe inadvertantly injure them, like i nearly did when I took the pig to show and tell, the responsibility of taking care of the pets is worthwhile work which hopefully is both fun and educational which provides (fond) memories for ones whole life.   

Listened to but didnt finish listening because it is an incredibly long and epic album, the just released (June 22, 2023)   Swans Album  "The Beggar"