Dear Dog,

The Christmas tree is considered holiday decor and its sole purpose is to give the house an air of festivity. It is NOT a help-yourself, all you can eat, buffet of colourful, plastic chew toys. If you value your place in this family, you will cease and desist your current behaviour immediately.

I thank you for your attention to this matter and urge that you conduct your self accordingly.

Sincerely,

The Management

***

Dear Kittens,

I realize that you are cats and as such have been indoctrinated, since birth, with the belief that the world is your oyster and you can do no wrong. Truly, I hate to be the one to bring any sort of doubt to this belief system. But, the large tree that has taken up residence in the living room was NOT put there for your amusement. The colourful baubles that adorn its branches are NOT your playthings and your jumping from branch to branch is NOT poetry in motion. Truthfully you are all at that gawky, teenage stage of kittenhood and although you may feel graceful, that cat-like precision is currently under development. I realize that your mother has told you differently, but seriously, anyone who still breastfeeds their teenage children should not be trusted. I apologize for bringing this harsh reality to light but it had to be done.

Sincerely,

The Management

the dog days of summer....

Perhaps it was a combination of heat and stress finally causing my brain to crumble in on itself thus rendering any sort of logical thought process obsolete. Perhaps it was a sense of guilt on my husbands part that caused him to agree so quickly. It might have been the fact that the moment we arrived at the farm we were instantly greeted by swarm of wiggling puppies, each of them looking up at us with their liquid puppy eyes and a sense of expectation of fun things to come. Up until that moment Trent and I thought that we were "just looking"....that we would be able to drive away empty handed if we so desired. But one look at Tatyanna, sitting in the dirt surrounded by a mass of black and white fur and we knew that our immediate future would involve sleepless nights, ruined shoes and shouts of "NO!!! OUTSIDE!!" followed by a hasty mopping up of whatever mess was left behind. As she sat there, the look of awe and the sparkle in her eye was reminiscent of a little girl that I haven't seen in quite some time and miss dearly. How could we say "no" really?

Unfortunately when we asked what she thought, her answer was "2 puppies!!!" and we left the farm 2 dogs richer with that vague feeling of "what did we just get ourselves into??"

Since then, life has settled down once more into its usual state of elevated chaos. The older two weren't upset that we took the liberty of making such a "monumental decision" without their presence and were quite excited to chose names for each of the dogs. Keirnan, the car fanatic, named the little black puppy Shelby, after the Mustang. She has a "racing stripe" so he felt that it would be an appropriate name. Sharing a name however, is where the similarity ends as this Shelby has a physique more comparable to an army tank and would prefer to laze in the sun than race around the back yard with her feistier sister. Skylar named the black and white puppy with the border collie like markings. We were a little concerned at first because she has some truly bizarre naming tendencies but after we all vetoed the name Ivanna, she settled a more fitting Feya; which she stuck with even after finding out that it was Hebrew for "poufy". It will be interesting to see how this all goes. It's been a while since we've had a puppy in the house.