A lick and a promise

My mom has always hated housework. She belonged to the "lick and a promise" school of housekeeping. If the entire house was coated with a 1"thick layer of dust, she would give it a lick (a few swipes with a Kleenex) and a promise ("I'll do a better job later").

Blackie seems to be taking the same approach with her latest litter of puppies. She nurses them and she protects them if you get close to them, but basically she's doing the bare minimum to get by. It's hard not to compare her mothering skills to Patch's, but Patch only had 4 babies to nurture and keep clean, while Blackie has 11. So Blackie's pups tend to be wet with urine and sticky with poop, and abandoned for hours while Blackie roams the neighborhood (she gets into terrible mischief when we try to confine her). We change their bedding once a day and towel off the pups as best we can, and keep Blackie supplied with food and water. It may not be as great a start in life as Patch's pups got, but it's still a heck of a lot better than living in a ditch.

Most of the pups' eyes are open now, though I don't think their vision is very clear yet.