Puppy Life Times Two

At this moment, I have a three-pound dachshund puppy asleep inside my shirt and a 25-pound goldendoodle puppy asleep at my feet. Neither will stay asleep for more than about half an hour. And it's only 7:30 pm. So what do we do from 8 pm to 10 pm? That is the question we ask every night.

So the latest Espinoza news is...we got a second puppy one week ago.

Why would you not leave well enough alone when you've just brought home the most good-natured, trainable, loving goldendoodle puppy ever? Don't ask us, because we decided, after having Blu only for about eight weeks, to add to our family a puppy of a breed that is notoriously the most stubborn, difficult to train ever. I can say that firsthand because Pepper (aka El Pepe) is the fourth dachshund we've had in 38 years of marriage. We know the breed. And yet....we chose El Pepe.

 So this is what it's like at the Espinoza home with two puppies.

 Charli sleeps on the couch downstairs at night alongside El Pepe in her pint-sized crate  while Blu sleeps beside Charli or beside El Pepe. Charli gets up at about 2:30  am and 5:30 am with Pepper to go potty. Pepper then sleeps (or at least stays quiet) until about 8 am. You might as well call an exorcist for me if I my sleep is interrupted on a regular basis. So having Charli get up during the night with Blu and now with El Pepe - well, she saves us the bother of finding a modern-day exorcist. As for Blu, she has taken herself out the doggie door to go potty since about 10 days after we brought her home and slept through the night after about 4 days with us.

 Last weekend, I took the nightshift so Charli could get a good night's sleep on the eve of a boatload of homework that was due. Pepper went to sleep peacefully in her crate with Blu sleeping beside me on the couch at about 10:30. I knew Pepper would wake up to go potty during the night, so I could not get to sleep. Sure enough, about 1:00 am, she stirred. I took her out...she went potty...then she settled back down in her crate. Until about 6:30 am. This is not an acceptable wake-up time for me, particularly when I've already been awake all night waiting for a puppy to let me know it's time to go potty. After her morning pee and poop break, I figured it was too much to expect her and Blu to both lounge on the couch with me for a while. So I resolved to be awake for the day. I plopped Pepper in a puppy carrier, put Blu on a leash, and took them for a lovely sunrise walk that honestly would have been even more lovely had it occurred an hour or two later. Pepper kept squirming and trying to crawl out of the carrier while Blu vacillated between picture-perfect "heels" and Tigger-like leaps on the leash. All the while, Blu continued to glance up to make sure her sister was doing OK.

 That entire day, I was completely out of sorts. Lisa Espinoza with interrupted sleep is a human volcano waiting to erupt. Thankfully, Charli got her homework done, was well rested, and resumed her nightshift puppy duties that evening, thereby averting any newsworthy eruptions on my part. Aaahhh the benefits of youth. Charli sleeps soundly between potty alarms while I lie there pretending to sleep while awaiting the next whimper or whine. We would NOT have undertaken this ridiculous adventure of two pups simultaneously without Charli.

 Back to the typical day...

Morning means a walk with Blu and now also with Pepper in the puppy sling carrier followed by breakfast. Breakfast is not your typical "throw the food in a stainless steel bowl" sort of deal. No, puppy breakfasts in this day and age mean snuffle mats or some sort of food puzzle incorporated with self-regulation training. We hand feed at first, reinforcing the "sit" or the "eat calmly" paradigm. We have not once used a regular dog food bowl with Blu or Pepper. Seriously, my daddy who threw table scraps out the front door every day to our dogs is turning over in his grave.

 After the morning routine, it's all a crapshoot. The three of us are juggling work and puppies. And Charli is also juggling her pre-med studies online at UCLA. We just tag-team it the best we can.

 Today, it was a literal sh**-show. Charli texted me at work and told me she was in the middle of a lab and had to go to work immediately following. She was in a real time crunch and felt badly that I would need to bathe Pepe and clean up her (Pepe's) apartment when I got home.

 Sure enough, when I got home there was poop and pee and a whining puppy -- a spoiled rotten rockstar trashing the hotel room for the fun of it!

 This called for some strategery. I decided to first bathe Pepper and then, for containment, to put her in her tiny crate which was miraculously unsoiled. Then I gathered up the poop-caked toys and soaked the hard ones in bleach while the soft ones went in the washer. Next, I scrubbed the tile floor, scraping the dried poop off bit by bit, not unaccompanied by various appropriate curse words. Last, I wiped down the wire pen that comprises the boundaries of her apartment.

 All the while, Blu was a rockstar. Yes, she had the usual excited piddle when I came home from work, but she watched in puzzled amusement as I cleaned up the mess, almost as if to say, "Why would you poop in your apartment and then smear it all over?"

 In the evenings, we wing it, not unlike when you have a newborn or a toddler, and every night you just try to make it until it's time for them to fall asleep. Only you can put diapers on a baby or a toddler. Puppies...mmmmm....let's just say I wish I owned stock in Nature's Miracle.

 So...there is a three-pound farting doxie puppy asleep in my lap. And a 25-pound goldendoodle puppy asleep at my feet. If I'm being honest, I just want my normal life back. I want to do spin or Pilates or yoga when I get home from work. I want to continue binge watching stuff on Netflix. I want to know that my mornings, my daytimes, and my evenings are my own to do with what I wish. But I chose to bring two puppies into my life. So I am learning the arts of patience and perseverance and of savoring the moment.

 And of getting to bed before 11:00 so I can get a decent night's sleep. That's a big one.

 Night night Blu. Night night El Pepe. Until tomorrow...