Daisy’s baby days are flying by. Yes, that’s right, her baby days. I know she is not a child, she is a dog. But she is still my baby. My husband calls her that too as in “Maggie, be gentle with the baby” and “Honey, where’s the baby. Do you see her?”

She’s sleeping downstairs with the big dogs now. She’s found her voice (tiny though it is yet) and barks and growls at Maggie when they play. She’s doubled in size in the two weeks we’ve had her. She’s learning her name and hop-runs to us as soon as she sees us. She can climb upstairs but is still afraid to go down and gets stuck at the top if we don’t block them. She hits the wee-wee pads about 50% of the time. It was too cold to let her out much and now everything is a muddy mess, so we just keep working on getting her to do her business on the pads and not chew them up. She and Maggie play all day. Although Daisy is the little one, I can see that she will be the one in charge shortly. Her sweet puppy face is already beginning to change; I can see the beautiful girl she will become.

Raising a puppy is like time-lapse parenthood; the growing stages go by so quickly. And I do consider myself to be Daisy’s parent. One of the definitions of parent in Webster’s is “a person who brings up and cares for another”. I don’t have human children of my own and at this point in my life, unless something Biblical happens, I won’t have any. But I will “bring up and care for” Daisy just as I have for my other dogs. I will feed her, teach her,keep her healthy, play with her and give her all the love I can.