Feeling: protective
Listening to: --
Reading/Watching: Frasier season 7

From the beginning, we swore that we wouldn't get gross or weird about the puppy.

We wouldn't call ourselves "Mommy" and "Daddy," we wouldn't dress her in outfits or throw her birthday parties or do anything else that screams "We wish our dog was a baby."

But then the little fluffernutter showed up, and claimed our laundry as her sleeping place, chewed up candles, Bic pens, and the crotch of my panties, and tried to dig through our carpet to China.

She also makes brave little "whuff" noises when she's too shy to bark, curls up between us on cold mornings, and licks tears off my face after a bad day. So of course, we were hooked. We still haven't dressed her in doggy-sweaters or put her picture on our Christmas card, but we did eventually slip up and call ourselves Mom and Dad once or twice.

Last night, we went up to our cousins' house for an overnight party, and brought Allegra because Bartok and Kerry swore she could stay in the little backyard enclosure with their dog unless it got too cold.

While mon coeur was unloading the car, he overheard their dog growling and barking, and then Allegra screamed. He ran over and pulled the dogs apart: the aptly named "Buttercup" had Allegra pinned on her back. We took her inside with us, and she was her usual cuddly self, running to greet every new guest and behaving well (she's past her carpet-excavation phase, thank God).

It got late, people got drunk, and at one point someone tried to pick her up and she yelped and ran to me, shaking. I decided to go to bed and bring her with me, and when we took her harness off, we saw deep puncture wounds from Buttercup's teeth and dried blood on her side.

I swear to God, mon coeur was ready to take a club to Buttercup right that second. I had to calm him down and convince him that Allegra was a tough little nugget. If she can survive her first three months of life eating out of dumpsters, digesting pens and chicken bones, she can handle a dog bite. It didn't even need stitches.

We held her still to disinfect it and all that jazz, and she's been snuggly and sorta wobbly all day. I try to act strong and tell myself she's just a dog, but when I see the scabs I want to cry.

To quote my husband: "How the hell will we handle having kids?"

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