2021-06-23
Whine Duty

WHINE DUTY

It’s Wednesday night and I’m barely recovering from my Monday Night of Whine Duty.

Two nights ago I had the brilliant idea of placing our two puppy rat terriers in my big-ass round bathtub. Everyone else had placed them at bedside behind a 4-sided gate.

I was warned and told “They need to see you; they’re people puppies.”

My reply was essentially, “Anh, let ‘em whine; we let our babies cry…” That was absolutely a lie, if only to myself, because I rocked all four of my babies to sleep…for years.

But these weren’t babies I convinced myself, even though Chelsea had commented only a few days ago that taking care of these baby dogs was very much like being a newborn parent again. After all, we’ve picking up after them all day long, potty training them (if not stepping in their fresh poop on our rugs), and constantly worried that they are in mortal danger.

Yesterday, we had to frantically search for them about the yard and the surrounding desert property three times because we had been warned a few times by our new friends and neighbors that many a small pet had been lost to owls, hawks and coyotes; not to mention the chickens lost to raccoons and the sightings of mountain lions, pumas and bears. Oy, vay.

Anyvay, so here I am thinking my night at the museum was going to be a quiet one. Little did I know I would be awoken at 10:30, 12:30 and 2:30 to a incessant whine that would melt the coldest heart and make Señor Grinch’s thumbsized muscle grow ten times bigger.

Hence, there I was, bathside, “shhhhh”ing and petting for 45 minute stints of whine duty. Ay, yay, yay.

“See, I told you so,” Milo said the next morning, cockily as “Pecker” might one day crow. The aptly-named rooster is the sole cock we have right now in the hen house; he coincidentally got his name simply because he was constantly pecking at his fellow chicks. Makes sense right?

Likewise, what makes more sense now are bedside puppy pens. Ugh