Mac, Cap & Mocha
Mac, Cap & Mocha Pictures
January, 2014. The loss of Gunner was an enormous blow to me. After several weeks, many tears, a vacation and a blizzard, we were finally emotionally ready to let some new doggies into our lives.
Enter Mac (Macchiato), Cap (Cappuccino) and Mocha, our foster pups # 38, 39, and 40. At about one month old, these pitty-mix pups quickly showed very distinct personalities. At 7 pounds Big Mac was very high energy, requiring lots of playtime compared to his 5.2 pound siblings. Cap was more medium energy, while brown-colored Mocha usually just wanted to be cuddled and nap.
They all ate ok, and didn't overeat so their food was left out. They had the odd habit of depositing a few kibbles into their water bowl, so it needed to be replaced more often than usual.
They went though the normal puppy rites of passage: baths, nail clipping, learning what to bite and what not to bite... They had been transferred from the city shelter with their mom and seemed very well socialized. Mocha had a bit of a cough the first day, and seemed to have an awkward walk at first.
When Theresa starting doing her Insanity workout the next morning the pups all flocked to the gate, despite me being in with them, and cried up a storm as if they were seeing their recently separated mom again. It took some doing to settle them down.
As expected, dealing with three puppies was more demanding than two, especially three that had so recently left their mom. One was perpetually in your lap while one or two (always Mac) needed to play, eat or go potty. We went through a huge amount of newspapers.
By the third day Mocha, who otherwise was doing fine, still had a slight cough and some nasal discharge so she and the others went on doxy.
As luck would have it the shelter was asked to provide 20 puppies to shoot a Puppy Bowl ad for Tom Wood Subaru, so Mac, Cap and Mocha got to have a family reunion with their siblings on a miniature football field. Happy puppies!
The pups loved their daily Safari excursion to the kitchen and laundry room. We had accumulated so many dog toys over the last few years that they got a couple of new fun things to play with each day.
On one curious occasion the three pups found themselves in opposite corners, each one in a ready-to-pounce mode, waiting for the others to make a sudden move before charging. It reminded me of the scene from "The Office" from the Hosting a Murder episode where Pam yells "I'm not going down for this!" and has a three-way standoff with two other characters.
One thing about fostering three puppies: I had to do a load of laundry each day to keep my clothes and their toys free from pee smells. Ah, puppies.
Over the next week the pups grew and thrived. We had family over to help socialize them, but they proved to be very confident puppies. After about two weeks they went back to the shelter to get spayed and neutered and go up on the adoption floor, just in time for their Puppy Bowl ad to air. We’re so proud of our little stars.
