puppies!

Finally, the puppies I promised a few weeks ago… [Fortunately – or unfortunately – I think all these guys have been adopted. They don’t last long when they’re this cute, but I hear there’s another litter under Paws’ care!]

A little over a month ago, Paws in the City rescued a litter of brown and black pups (and mom, Cinnamon) from the city shelter (no place for puppies!). Urban Paws was generous enough to take them in until they were old enough to start looking for forever homes. I went by to visit the litter of nine – and stayed for entirely too long getting a good, long fill of puppy breath. They were about a month old at that point and were just starting to progress from little fuzzy blogs to mobile fuzzy chewing machines. They spent most of the time sleeping or harassing their mother, constantly battling for a primo nursing spot, with an occasional wrestling match. Surprisingly (to me, at least), the four brown puppies all hung out together, and the five black ones did as well– there really wasn’t much cross-over between the two. That turned out to be pretty fortunate, really, because the litter had been exposed to coccidia but the effects were pretty much limited to just the black ones (so it only hit about half the litter, though it did hit that half hard — so much so that the little black runt didn’t make it). The five blacks were removed and put under vet care until the surviving four were healthy enough and then transitioned to a foster home until they were ready for adoption. All the while, the little brown kids (three boys and a girl) thrived, never even showing any symptoms. I went back for two more visits with the little bear cubs, each about a week apart. It’s amazing to see how fast they grow from sweet baby cubs into mischievous little creatures who sleep a lot less and poop a lot more (and have developed a strong love for their favorite toy, a broom). After my last visit, they left Urban Paws for a foster homes to start learning the basics of crate-training and housebreaking so they’d be ready when it was time for them to find homes.

The shooting conditions weren’t ideal but that didn’t stop me from taking a zillion or so shots.