Introducing Clementine

This is how it started. We drove to Peducah, Kentucky and met Hubby's rents at a hotel to pick up the puppy. Actually, as you might have guessed, even the ride there was an adventure, with the 100 degree weather, three children, all the necessary gear, forgotten shoes, forgotten wipes, fast food restaurants and so on. But I'll spare you the gory details. We made it there. So did the rents and the puppy.

Then we spent the night trapped in a hotel room with a homesick puppy who does not know the meaning of the word "no". Or "Quiet". Or even "Shut the hell up, dammit, it's four in the morning!!"

Luckily, the kids slept through the howling and wailing, so we had that going for us. Then we drove home. Clem was pretty tired by then, so she slept great in the car. Shocker.


She is acclimating to life in our madhouse pretty well. She is still howling a bit at night, but now she is MUCH farther away so we can ignore her. She does this amazing bi-tonal howl that registers her highest and lowest register simultaneously which freaks me out on occasion, but then I shut the door and go to sleep. Because I am a seasoned mom. That is to say, callous. Or, as the Dog Whisperer would say, "a calm assertive pack leader". I'm okay with either description.

While her name is Clementine, she has already acquired a nickname. Since she is such a little dope I've taken to calling her "Doodle" which the kids use more often than anything else. After all the thought and debate that went into her name, she is most frequently called Doodle, Twinkle, or Puppy. Go figure.

So far, Clem thinks the kids are just big puppies from her litter, and the kids are doing nothing to disabuse her of this notion. They run together through the house like a wolf pack, jumping and shrieking. Until Clem collapses in a corner of our bedroom which she has claimed as her private "timeout" zone.

She is a bit leery of the stairs. She goes up okay, but as you can see, she is a bit nervous about going down. I like how this photo gives you a frame of reference for how little she still is.


Quin is the child most enamored of the new family member. Of course, Quin thinks Clem is a baby to be picked up, tucked into doll beds, dressed in bonnets. Quin's first thought of the morning is: "Where's the puppy" and her last act at night is to tuck the puppy into whatever bed she can find.

Ribh is too little to really deal with Clem in any meaningful way, so when she is accosted with puppy kisses and nips, she just freaks out and starts screaming, which in Clem's language means "more please" so I have to keep an eye of those two.

But all in all, we are having a blast in puppy land. Now if the temperature would just drop below 100 degrees, we'd be set!