It’s enough to make you think about giving up drink. Just one too many and look at the result!

Photo taken before handover

You know how it goes…………….That haze of good-will that envelops you with a warm and snuggly feeling (phase 1), before it starts to wear off and you consider whether it will be wise to take a paracetamol before going to bed (phase 2), and the feeling in the morning when you think perhaps you should have taken two paracetamol last night and the realisation of what you did during phase 1 (phase 3).

It happened a week ago – I had been out with some new chums and had drunk only one glass of wine too many. On returning home I checked in on emails and facebook (as you do) …….and it just happened. It wouldn’t have happened without that extra glass of wine, but it did happen and I now have to take full responsibility for my actions.

I saw a facebook appeal from a local animal charity in my home town in Spain pleading for a foster carer for two abandoned pups, currently 3 to 4 weeks old, which had been dumped in a rubbish bin in the village. I found my fingers typing a response………’I can do that’ and before I had a chance to back-peddle I had clicked the send button and got an instant reply thanking me for my generosity – and when could I collect them!

At this point in time I hadn’t discussed ‘my generosity’ with my partner David, who I knew would agree but wouldn’t be keen, and I certainly hadn’t discussed the situation with Roly and Sheba, our scruffy mutt and our princess pussy cat who both like things at home just the way they are.

Two days later David collected me from Málaga airport and we picked up the tiny bundles of fluff on the way home. At the moment they are masquerading as guinea pigs, with very short legs (typical of cross-breeds in this area) and very fat tummies. Luckily they are eating solids so I don’t have to bottle feed, but they do require five feeds a day and a lot of ‘swabbing the decks’. I seem to have spent 70% of my waking hours during the last few days sitting or crawling on the floor.

I do find them fascinating. I have past experience of puppies and kittens at first hand, but have never hand-reared so have not paid so much attention to their habits and interaction with eachother and with me. They already have strong personalities and are quite different from eachother.

They have been christened Bootsie (he has four white socks and a bib)

Bootsie in reflective mood

and Eddie (he distinctly resembles a teddy bear but there are already several dogs hereabouts called Teddy)

Eddie, pondering what trouble to find next

I am confident that I will be happy to see them move on to new homes when the time is right (not like a friend of mine who found a starving dog a couple of weeks ago that was chipped, but the owner did not want her back – and had probably chucked her out in the first place – and after feeding and loving her for a week was told that a new home had been found for her, at which news my friend burst into tears and decided there and then to keep her beloved new dog, to go with the three that she already has!)

The pups’ reception in our household has been predictable. David is tolerant but not overjoyed, Roly is really pissed off, won’t go anywhere near them, and immediately goes outside whenever they are out of their box, whilst Sheba treats them the disdain that all dogs deserve and pretty much ignores them. And I have been crawling around the floor like an over-active toddler with a roll of loo paper always at the ready.

They spend a lot of time play-fighting and take it in turns to bite eachother’s noses

Bootsie biting eddie

Eddie biting Bootsie

I’m sure I shall be posting on this subject again. In the meantime, if you would like to offer these gorgeous boys a loving home (one or both) or know of anyone who might, please let me know. A lot of abandoned dogs from this area are re-homed in Northern Europe and financial assistance could probably be found to help with travel expenses. Just make sure you are sober before hitting that button!