Someone Left The Gate Open

About two months ago, someone left our front gate open.

Look what happened.

Our dog had puppies. EIGHT puppies.

The first one arrived on Saturday morning, just as Darling Man and I were preparing to leave for a morning walking tour. A pre-booked tour is not something you can postpone at the last minute, or call in sick for.

We had to leave our lovely dog with our helper, a lovely lady from the Mekong Delta who looks after Miss M when we go to work (which isn’t really like working at all).

When we got home, there were six puppies in the awkward alcove under the stairs. But Mitzie wasn’t finished. With a minimum of fuss, two more popped out. Mitzie the SuperMum licked them all clean and anxiously let us checked each one.

One of the black ones has a white tummy. We may call him Penguin. The smallest one, a tiny brown one, we may call Mouse.

Darling Man says it will be easy to find homes for them all because they are all so cute and because their mum has such a lovely temperament.

One day old cuteness

Friends who don’t live in Vietnam are concerned about the placement of the pups, worried that some may end up on the menu of a dog restaurant. I have assured them that won’t happen.

Even though I was slightly peeved Mitzie got pregnant when we tried so hard to keep her inside, I am glad that Miss M and I have been able to watch proceedings. I think this early exposure to pregnancy and birth probably means I will avoid an embarrassing birds-and-the-bees talk with Miss M a few years down the track. And even further down the track, I can issue suitably dire warnings to Miss M about the consequences of boyfriends. (On a side note, we suspect Mitzie’s pups have more than one father. Apparently that is actually possible!)

But for the next two months, our lives are going to be filled with puppy joy. I can’t wait for them to open their eyes and start licking. Is there anything better in the world that puppy kisses?

Can you work out which one we’re calling Mouse?

And then, when Mitzie has recovered enough from the birth, we will get her fixed up. It’s something we keep forgetting and postponing because I’m too scared to send her to a local vet clinic and Darling Man is too tight to pay for her to have the procedure at the expensive expat vet clinic.

 
If you want to see a steady stream of puppy photos, like The Dropout Diaries on Facebook

By: Barbara

A career girl who dropped out, traveled, found love, and never got around to going home again. Now wrangling a cross-cultural relationship and two third culture kids.