LETTERS FROM HOME: A MULTIPLICATION OF PUPPIES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Sept. 28, 1995

Dear Pat,

Last week we had one new puppy, this week there are two. Life has an uncontrollable way of multiplying itself.

The first puppy, who's about 6 weeks old, appeared one day in the park next door, miserable and cold. A few days later, DC learned that our puppy was not as alone as he seemed. Two more puppies from the same litter had been found by a family a block away and were already in new homes. And a neighbor had taken a fourth puppy to the Humane Society.

I like this neighborhood.

DC and I debated for five seconds before taking off to get that other puppy.

She was bigger than ours and had pointy ears instead of down-turned ones, but her markings were exactly the same. Some people say they're miniature Doberman pinschers, some think half a Rottweiler is in there.

I wonder if someone trying to breed dogs from Hell was disappointed when they turned out to be pussycats.

The folks who run the Humane Society called our new puppy Sinead because her head had been shaved to treat an abscess. The original owner had wrapped rubber bands tightly around the puppies' tails to make the ends fall off. This was a common and dangerous method of docking tails until veterinarians came along. Now it's just irresponsible.

One of the puppies our neighbors found a home for is now in a veterinary hospital getting massive doses of antibiotics to fight an infection. They don't know if it will live.

At the Humane Society, they think an infection traveled from our newest puppy's still-bleeding tail to her head, causing the abscess. The veterinarian says it may have caused brain damage.

But she acts like a normal puppy, if a piggish one. She puts her whole body in the food bowl to keep her brother from getting any. And when we gave him his own bowl she alternated bites between the two.

DC and I sit on the couch watching them play every night. Sometimes they prance like lambs, other times they stalk each other in a duel of hypodermic teeth.

DC has taken to calling the female Gremlin because of her unfortunate resemblance to the movie characters. Or Piglet for her table manners. I've called the little guy a lot of different names -- especially during the house-training disasters -- but none has stuck.

So now, having just celebrated our second wedding anniversary, we are four. It's not quite the family portrait we'd envisioned, although DC always has liked the idea of twins.

She is amazed at the way life keeps giving her the things she asks for -- but not quite. She wished to be married, but not really to a guy from her home town. She wanted a house, but fell in love with one in a neighborhood far different from the one of her Beav and Wally upbringing. And she hoped to be a mother, but whining puppies arrived at our door.

The trick to life, the aphorism goes, is not getting what you want but being happy with what you get. Or maybe it's understanding that what you got was exactly what you needed.

I look at those puppies and deplore the acts of ignorance and cruelty that left them sick and abandoned, but I'm thankful that someone unconsciously knew where those puppies belonged.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.