But what puppies do have is speed. Lots of speed. I’ve watched videos of young cowboys and cowgirls chasing greased piglets for fun at rodeos and county fairs but they have nothing on a batch of six feisty, poo stained 6 week old terriers. I honestly have no idea why their mother is so protective of them. No creature on earth can capture them (that is except for my five year old granddaughter who is as ruthless a hunter as a hawk snatching trout out of Devils Lake).

I’m fully aware that I am whining and I have only myself to blame for this situation (which my brilliant seven year old grandson calls a “Poop-suation”), but whine I must and whine I will. I wanted a litter of puppies but in the joy of the moment I forgot how old I am and that puppy rearing (as is raising children) is a young man’s game.

Unfortunately there isn’t a small enough poop scoop to grab the multiplying piles of mini-excrement and my wife won’t allow me to use the salad tongs. So that means I’m doing more bending over and kneeling down in tight quarters than Shaquille O’Neal in a submarine.

And just when I’ve had enough-when I’m figuring out how I can get away with handing out the puppies at Halloween; I hold one close and smell that one of a kind puppy breath smell and get a quick lick on my beard from a tiny, tiny tongue and I feel their fur so soft in my hands that all I can do is thank God for these moments.

So, after they have been wrangled and washed, back in the pen they go with clean soft bedding, a bowl of food and each other to tussle with until they pile atop each other in a mass that would make a rugby coach proud and they fall asleep.

It’s good to be alive.