I have not yet begun to pose

Beauty can be very, very noisy.

Babies cry.  Puppies are babies.  Puppies cry. It occurred to me the other day -- as I withstood a yowling that would qualify as acoustic torture under the Geneva convention -- that it somehow seems normal to be less tolerant of puppies whining than we are of babies crying.  We don't like it when babies cry, but we expect it. And we mostly give babies a pass.  After a few days with a puppy, however, enough is enough, right?  "When will this dog learn to shut up?" So, we expect puppies to learn faster than babies.  We're expecting an animal with a fraction of human intelligence to learn faster than humans.  And we think we're pretty smart. The ones learning fastest are Flame-Haired Angel and me.  A little bit of sleep lost, but so far we haven't had to call in the puppy super nanny. We're all learning each other's rhythms and finding out what's fun and what's not. And one of us is looking less like an under-stuffed sausage and more like a dog. But only just. Taco at 8 weeks old and 1 week home.

I like blue-eyed red-heads

Taco's eyes will eventually change to be the same beautiful caramel colour as her coat.  But until then: wowzers!

Totally OK with being a ridiculous dog-parent

Being a childless couple in our mid-forties, we are an easy target.  Proclaim our besotted-ness with Taco to be the obsessive fulfillment of unsatisfied parental instinct, and most would presume you've got a prima facie case.  But I reckon it's barking up the wrong playpen.  I've been dog-obsessed my whole adult life, and baby-obsessed...well, never.  Having put off being a dog-parent until I felt my life stable enough to have the dog relationship I want, I've been hankering a long time.  So far as I know, it's not baby substitution.  It's simple wish fulfillment. But I can't say it'd make any difference.  I am just as crazy about her either way.

Taco's first day home

There are words, but the pictures are better.