Once, several years ago a small reddish dog appeared in our neighborhood. Where we lived then, out by the Narrows of the Harpeth, was the perfect dog dumping place for Middle Tennessee, or so it seemed to us, anyway. Missy, as we called her was perky and friendly and housebroken. She looked like a skinny, red coyote. We put her in our doggie guest house (a 10 x 20 fenced-in area, including a dog house with both a picture window and a huge comfy pillow).

Less than an hour later, Missy had escaped from the kennel and had discovered that the neighbor raised exotic chickens. Oops. At least she wasn’t humgry any more. I put bricks along the bottom edge, assuming she had dug out somewhere that wasn’t visible. While I was doing that she came up to me and bumped my arm with her nose. Considering that I was outside the fence, I gave up with the bricks. I discovered she had climbed to the top of the doghouse and jumped over the top. So I added a rain cover over the doghouse (a tarp). Problem solved and we started calling shelters. We also took her to the doc to make sure she was healthy and got any shots she needed. To our surprise, the vet told us she would give birth in a week or so. Try two days.

Eleven puppies. Eleven. We went from having two dogs, and a guest visitor, to 13 critters. And we promised ourselves we wouldn’t name them. Right. We found homes for all but two. Now, way out west, there’s another example of puppy goodness and they need help. The cute little critters never stop eating, peeing and crapping. It’s okay when there’s one or two, but an army of them is a nerve-frazzling nightmare.