Jean & V. Plus 21

Who needs reality TV (I've never watched it anyway)? Jon & Kate Plus Eight? Octo-Mom? They got nothin' on us. We are Jean & V. Plus 21 now.

When I went to work at 8:30 this morning, we had the 4 adult dogs, 1 adult cat, 1 kitten, 4 big puppies, and 10 little puppies (although some of them were MIA - out exploring in our neighbor's pasture). When I came home at 5:30 p.m., V. (Mr. P.) announced that another puppy arrived this afternoon. He heard someone crying out by the vegetable garden, went to investigate, and thought it was our Little Brown Puppy (as opposed to our Big Brown Puppies, Meg and Teddy). He called out to it, and as the puppy ran towards him, Mr. P. realized that it was too big and fluffy to be our L.B.P. This little guy is maybe a week older than our Little Puppies, and bears a strong resemblance to (yet another) neighborhood stray, a golden retriever we call Goldie (hey, when you have this many animals, naming them ain't easy) whose prominent teats suggest that she's nursing a litter of her own somewhere.

So I had to go out the garage and investigate. Sure enough, an extra puppy, who I instantly named Butterball for reasons that should be evident in this photo. Butterball was skittish at first, but he helped himself to puppy kibble and water and is now settled in with the L.B.P.'s and the cats after a milk nightcap courtesy of Blackie. The L.B.P.'s have to chase Blackie quite aggressively to get her to nurse now. She probably saw Butterball, shrugged, and said, "Oh, hell, let's get it over with."