Mom went out of town for the week and left me in care of her two-and-a-half-months-old puppy, Audrey, who has been conditioned to Mom's 9 to 5 schedule. I also work 9 to 5. However, my 9-5 is on the other side of the clock. As you can guess, I haven't been getting a lot of sleep.

As much as I love dogs, I'm not big on puppies. Audrey is no exception. She's cute and all, but I'm not sure it's worth the trade off in trouble. For example, the first thing she did on the first day Mom was out of town was start digging into a fire ant pile. I grabbed her and tried to brush off the ants. So far as I can tell, puppy went unscathed. I got bit. A lot.

While I was treating my wounds, puppy turned her demonic path of destruction on my geriatric poodle. July's no fan of puppy, but that never detours Audrey. She nips and nips and nips until July finds a safe hiding place. That day, there were no places safe from puppy. Through the use of either her needle sharp teeth or razor sharp claws, Audrey cut open the sebaceous cyst under July's right eye. I left the bathroom to find blood everywhere. The house looked like a war zone.

Since then, Audrey has spent a lot of time in her kennel.

Mom came back yesterday, which is good. If she'd waited much longer, there wouldn't have been much of a home to come back to. The little devil is her problem now.

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Everyone say hello to Mom's new dog.

Audrey is an 8 week old Havanese parti-colored puppy. She already likes to chew and nap. If she grows to enjoy a glass of wine, she and Mom will be best friends forever.

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Filming for Puppy Bowl VIII begins today in New York City. Last year's Puppy Bowl drew nearly 10 million viewers for Animal Planet. If puppies and football make such a great combination, maybe Animal Planet needs to look into some other puppy sports.

The hockey Puppy Cup could go on for 7 days, but it might be a bit dangerous to give all those puppies sticks and put them on ice. Tennis' Puppledon would no doubt be cute with all the British-accented barking, but no puppy would be able to pass the dress code. The Tour de Puppy would certainly be dragged down by all the doping accusations. And as much as dogs love cars, no one is going to tune in for the messes made on a PuppieCar track.

The event with the best chance for success is probably PuppyMania. Taking a page from the originator of sports-entertainment, PuppyMania would boggle the mind with the cuteness of the 24-dog Puppy Rumble. Only one puppy would emerge victorious from the dreaded Cage Match. Naturally, the closing number could be the ever-popular Wag Team Championship Match.

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I've been dog sitting for my father's poodle puppy, Rambo, and it turns out that his puppy is better behaved than mine. Victoria, my full grown poodle, is determined to catch one of dad's cats or hens, which makes every trip into the yard a struggle. So far, the score is Victoria 2, Hens 0 -- that's hens caught, not hens killed (Victoria has a poodle's typically soft mouth) -- before I could separate the combatants. Meanwhile, Victoria has her own cheering section as Rambo patiently stands at the top of the deck and barks his gleeful approval. He may be better behaved, but that doesn't mean that he's helping.

[UPDATE]: This blog post requires that I include the following picture of Rambo to illustrate just how vicious he is. You may want to shield the eyes of your impressionable children before scrolling down.

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Tis the season for poodles.

My aunt gifted me two rescued standard poodles this week. The black bitch is named July and is quite a playful handful. The light apricot bitch is named Victoria and is skittish and reserved. They came as a pair, previously owned by a woman who became unable to care for them following an injury. Despite the fact that they are both adults (2+ years old), they've kept me very, very busy.

Meanwhile, my father bought a new standard poodle puppy descended from a line including show champions. Though at this point the puppy remains unnamed, I'm sure that it can't help but do well considering that it's dam was named for Joanna Cameron's title character in television's The Secrets of Isis.

[UPDATE: For the record, Victoria isn't an apricot. She's just a really, really dirty white. Silly girl.]

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I mentioned the puppy in an earlier post. Like all puppies, Charlie is a little engine of destruction. And that's exactly why they're all so damn cute. If they weren't cute, we'd kill them.

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New puppy in the house, breaking all the rules. I don't think you ever really realize how comfortably complacent you've become with the status quo until a new puppy forces you to reorganize everything in the house to ensure that nothing important gets chewed up or peed on. New puppies are notoriously big fans of dangling participles and all the trouble they can cause.

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