A Big Week!

First off... the Taos conference was great. I took my daycap, for the inquiring minds that wanted to know. The conference was also very successful. I met a lot of other people from Adams which was great and was challenged to really examine some of my teaching methods, which is always a good thing.

On my way back from Taos, I stopped at a dog shelter that Reid and I had been at the weekend before. They had a beagle listed on their website. There aren't very many beagles in the valley so she really caught my eye. Her name is Glory. We took Tater down to meet her and they got along very well. There was only one hitch... she was very pregnant! However, we looked at the timeline and figured that might work out best for us, because she could have her babies at the shelter, nurse them and when they were ready to be weaned, I would be coming back from DC, where I'm going to be nannying for my sister.

So, I stopped there yesterday to sign the paperwork for her. She had still not had her puppies and was as loving as ever. The shelter employee and I started talking and to make a long story short, Glory is now home with us. I have always wanted to have a dog who had puppies so that I can experience that, but have always (and will always) be too responsible to let a female dog in my care get pregnant... so this seemed the best of both worlds. She is my dog, but the puppies are the responsibility of a no-kill animal shelter. Most importantly, the puppies will be delivered in a warm and quiet environment, which should hopefully be a lot less stressful for Glory. When I leave towards the end of June, we'll take Glory and her puppies back to the shelter, where she can continue to nurse them and the puppies will be put up for adoption there. Then when the puppies are all gone, or she's done weaning them, she'll come back to our house with Reid.
So, without further ado, here is the newest member of our family!

Her belly is very big... but she's not above begging in the kitchen! Doesn't she look like Tater?



She is so much more of a food hound than Tater is... and look there's a huge box full of stuff she loves right in the kitchen!

I think this picture best shows just how pregnant she is... poor girl! We are just crossing our fingers that there are lots of little puppies rather than a few big puppies, as little puppies are a lot easier for her to deliver!

And here she is finally comfortable on her bed that we brought home from the shelter. She tore a hole in it while at the shelter, one of the multiple times she has tricked them into thinking the coming of the puppies is imminent! But we all know that they'll come on their own schedule, and no one else's!