The Advendtures Of Two "Small But Mighty"

Chapter Four: Christmas Is Here

My humans have been preparing for Christmas. They had spent most of the month unpacking and settling into the new house, so they rushed to get some Christmas decorations up before Christmas day arrived. They wanted to make sure that Santa could find us. I liked to sit and watch the lights twinkle all over the tree. It looked like a tree, but it did not smell like one. It smelled like plastic.

My smaller human was home for Christmas break. I enjoyed having her home with me. I could tell she was excited, and this made me excited. We both visited the tree often and looked at the presents that sat beneath it. I sniffed at the boxes, but I didn’t smell any food and nothing else seemed to attract my attention.

Being tired and restless, I made my way back to my kennel. Where I slid through the opening in the hanging sheets. Ohhh, I yawned before settling down to get comfortable for a nap. Just a quick one, I thought, and before I knew it, I was sound asleep.

Every day, my human mom wraps and put new presents under the tree. By the time Christmas day had arrived, there were tons of presents! On Christmas morning, my small human found all the gifts that Santa had left in our stockings. She started pulling items out one by one from her stocking. She was all smiles. I snuggled on my human dad’s lap while I watched her. Before I knew it, she brought mine and Kitty’s stockings over and helped us pull out all the treats and toys that Santa had left for us.

The house was filled with excitement, and it smelt delicious too. I wandered around, hoping to find a morsel that had been dropped on the floor. Bark, Bark, Rfff, Bark, Bark. I shot to the front door as I heard a car pull into the driveway. The small human’s Omi and Papa were here.

She came running through the house, hollering excitedly. Good, I thought to myself, she’s been taking notes. Now I just need to teach her to bark at cars when they pull into the driveway. My train of thought was broken when the door opened. I dashed over, OOooOOoo, Rrrr, OOooOOoo, Ahh, Rrrr I voiced excitedly. I could smell Frankie and some of the other dogs on their clothes, but they didn’t come with them today.

Everyone was talking, cooking, snacking, and having a good time. While the food was baking, they let the little human open more presents and the adults even had some to open too. When I had had enough of the chaos, I went to my kennel for a little privacy. It was a long but very fun day. The next couple of days, my humans relaxed and enjoyed their Christmas gifts and Christmas dinner leftovers. I snuggled some but found myself wanting to be in my kennel for the most part. It gave me the feeling of a cave or den. It was comforting.

Ouch, I spun my head around quickly to look at my side. That hurt, I shifted my position. I tried to find some relief. The little pains had started late in the night and continued through the morning. I whimpered, and my human mom came to check on me. She petted my head and told me everything was going to be just fine. She sat with me for a while talking to me and petting me. The pains started coming again and again. Getting closer and stronger and lasting longer.

Then the air filled with a sweet smell. What is that? I lay there trying to recuperate and understand what had just happened. My human mom gently handed me something as she pulled a wet sack from its face. It started crying. My ears immediately perked up at the noise.

A puppy, my puppy! I started l*****g my baby to clean it up and dry it off. I did not like the taste. The pain started again, another puppy! They were coming pretty fast, and I was so tired. I was grateful to my human mom. She helped me make sure their airways were clear, so they could breathe and also to dry and clean them all, so they wouldn’t catch a cold.

I heard my human mom making a phone call. We have nine puppies! Mom and babies are all doing well. There are seven girls and two boys. Wow, good job Daisy, I could hear my human dad say through the phone. I was too tired to answer. Mom had changed all my bedding again, so it was fresh and dry.

I dozed in and out of sleep the rest of the night. My puppies were quite noisy and were constantly moving and squirming about. I had to clean up after each of them, and it seemed to never end. The next morning, I felt like I hadn’t slept at all. I was so tired. My human mom made me a delicious soft protein meal, to encourage me to eat.

She let me eat it in my bed. I didn’t want to leave my babies. She also offered me fresh water in bed, which I gladly accepted. I hadn’t wanted anything earlier, but I sure did now. After eating and drinking my fill, she coaxed me outside. I didn’t want to leave my puppies. She walked off the porch with me, I ran down, peed, and then bolted back up the steps.

I could hear my puppies’ squeaky little voices. OOooOOoo, Ahh, Rrrr, OOooOOoo, I said to her while putting my paw on the door. She let me back in, and I bolted back to my puppies. She helped to make sure that even the littlest of my babies got something to eat. The bigger pups tend to push the little ones out of the way when they are wrestling their way up to the buffet.

None of my babies can see when they are born, so they blindly crawl and push their way about. With such a big litter, it can be a challenge for the smaller pups to get a meal, especially since I only have eight n*****s and two of mine are not working properly. They become inverted when my milk is filled up and the puppies cannot get to them. So now I only have six n*****s to feed nine puppies. Which is why my human mom steps in often to intervene and help me.

After a week of lying with my babies and tending to them 24/7. I started getting restless. I wanted to stretch and get back to some of my other duties. I got up to get out of my kennel and all my babies were booted from the buffet line. This caused quite an uproar with discontent and upset whimpers. I looked them all over before heading to the mudroom to look out the windows. Rrrr Ruff, a car went by. I let it know that it was not welcome here.

It was very hard to focus on guard duty with the high pitch squeaks disrupting the silence in the house coming from my puppies. I hopped off the bench and ran back to check on them. Taking a deep breath, they were fine, I trotted back to the bench to resume my duties. Squeak, Squeak came the disgruntled opinions of my puppies again. Down off the bench, I went back to check on them. Again, they were fine.

We continued this routine several more times before I was exhausted and settled in beside them. They excitedly started nosing their way around to find me and I nosed around cleaning up their potty messes. Yuck, I gagged, I hated having to eat their poo. I looked at my human mom for help. She got up, and I knew she would be back to help me, so I just licked their bottoms to clean them up.

Sure enough, my human mom came back with a bag and napkins and started cleaning up. She felt around the bedding and noticed it was a little wet and went to get some new bedding. She handed the little human one of my pups. She went and sat on the couch snuggling and petting my baby.

My puppy squeaked, I immediately jumped up and got on the couch to see what was going on. I poked my nose at my baby, tail wagging. OOooOO I said to my baby. I was a little nervous. I had so many babies, if they started leaving the kennel, how would I keep track of them all?

Then I heard several more disgruntled squeaks coming from the kennel. I jumped down to go check on them. My human mom was moving them all off to one side, so she could put the new bedding in. She then moved them onto the clean side, removed the dirty bedding and stretched the clean bedding out the rest of the way.

I climbed in and was about to lay back down when I heard a squeak from the couch again. OOooOOoo, I said as I laid there with big and round eyes, staring at the small human and my puppy. My human mom brought my puppy back, and I was able to relax again.

When my puppies were about two weeks old, my human mom said it was time to come up with litter call names. She was telling the smaller human that this is what we will call them while they are with us until their new owners name them, themselves.

After my human dad, mom, and the smaller human, talked and fussed over my babies for a while, they decided to do a litter theme. They named my whole litter of puppies after different kinds of trees from around the world!