Stress Relievers: #1

I'm going to have another niece! My brother and his fiancee found out yesterday that their baby-on-the-way is a girl. This is their 3rd and I was hoping for another girl, so I'm pretty happy. Although I would have been happy with a boy too, you know how it is.

Finally #1, the best stress reliever of them all. You may have some guesses, and you are probably wrong (this is a PG13 blog, thank you very much). So that aside, I ask myself: What in the world makes me instantly happy and worry free? And the answer is:

#1 - Puppies!

Pros:
The soft, furriness? The confused little head tilts? The pause, run, pounce move and the similar pause, surprise snap move? The tiny puppy teeth nibbling on you, your sock, or their favorite toy as they play? They way they stumble when they start to walk or run? How they sometimes sit and then fall over because they lost their balance? Little puppy growls and barks? Finding them sleeping in silly positions and/or places?

Adorable!

I could keep going, but I think you get the picture. Okay, I can't help it, a few more: How at the pet shop (yeah I know they're evil) all the puppies pile on top of each other to sleep and roll around together playing? There's one at the mall that lets all their puppies out every morning as they get ready to open the shop, and they have a glass storefront so you can see the big line of them trailing the store owner, doing all those cute puppy things mentioned above.

Adorable!

If you're a good owner and start training them early, it won't be long until they are cute and well-trained dogs. They may not do as many cute things as puppies, but dogs have their own share of great qualities.

If you're not such a good owner, you can still always play with someone else's puppy and then give it back for the hard stuff. This also works for children. :p

They tend to sleep a lot, so there's plenty of time to get the things done, and they're easy to keep in one place if you have a baby gate or are good at using what's around the house to create a playpen of sorts.

Cons:
Poo on your floor until potty trained.

There's going to be some chewing, and leaving them home alone is risky (just ask my brother about his brand new couch).

Sometimes they don't sleep through the night, or whine if they get scared.

In other words, they don't come trained; they take a bit of work at first. But all these cons can be solved by playing with someone else's puppy.

One that can't be? Allergies.

Thankfully there are still puppy pictures:

Puppies - #1 stress reliever. Just thinking about them puts a huge grin on my face. They may not solve my problems, but they can sure distract me from them for a little while. Sometimes that's all I really need.



P.S. The picture isn't photoshoped. Here's the story. Try not to smile at that, I dare you!