It’s been awhile since I’ve provided an update on the puppies… or the poopies as I like to call them. Several stories come to mind, but I can hardly remember them as I’m still recovering from Friday’s sleep deprivation.
It started Friday morning as all sicknesses, mysterious rashes and injuries are want to do at our house. Maladies always appear on Friday mornings when you have to gamble on whether it will resolve itself by the afternoon, or create an issue where decent medical care is inaccessible until Monday. Friday morning we realize something is seriously wrong with Piper. Her neck is swollen like a grapefruit.
Long story short, there are some terse texts that afternoon, James loses and embarks on an adventure getting Piper into the crate and the car and out of the car and saves her with a stranger’s help in the Trader Joe’s parking lot and the vet knocks her out, performs some kind of surgery, and sends her home in a big plastic cone.
Now Pipes is already kind of goofy. She got her mother, Gigi’s, goof genes. I can’t really put my finger on it, but it’s in stark contrast to Lightning’s strong physique, perfect point and amber eyes.
Lightning and Piper have to be separated, which is highly antithetical to the Fucillo Family mantra: Brothers Stick Together. In this case: Sisters Stick Together. But it’s doctor’s orders so that no one bites her stitches out. The vet determined that fighting and wrestling may have been what caused the trauma in the first place. So James decides to put Lightning in the crate on the front porch and leaves Piper in the dog pen.
We all go to bed.
At 1:32 in the morning I hear a whine on the right side of the house. Then a bark on the left. Then a bark on the right. Then an empathetic return bark on the left. It crescendo’s into an all out cacophony of Doggie Dolby Surround Sound ala “What? The puppies are missing? 99 puppies are missing! Where did you see the puppies?? A fat man and a skinny man have them in a big truck! A pointy, ugly lady in a yellow coat is coming! Rrrufff woof WOOOOOOOOF!”
It was a nightmare. One dog is literally next to the boys’ bedroom window. I can’t escape it because all the cousins are sleeping soundly in the barn. There is nowhere to hide. The terse texts of the previous afternoon are re-exchanged in person. James loses again. He leaves in a huff and never comes back to bed. Believe me, I can’t ask.
I’m not entirely sure, but I might have heard a big red car with black fenders peeling out in the driveway.