🏥🚒 | familiar scents and familial connections.

Aww, Delilah, look! It’s a whole entire wide open space for us to talk about ourselves!

Hmm... well, I suppose we could spare a moment to share our story, couldn’t we? Though how to explain it in a way that’s both succinct yet still faithful...?

I think the best place to start is the fact that yes, we do have ninety-nine wonderful puppies in our home, and yes, they are a bunch of silly little rascals who we often lose track of, since they’re always all over the place.

Oh, but we do look out for them, of course! Sure, our jobs do keep us busy throughout the day – I work at the hospital, while my dear husband Doug works at the firehouse – but when we have free time to spare, we make sure to give each and every puppy of ours the same amount of love as their siblings.

Though we should probably clarify that we didn’t have them all at once; fifteen of them were hers before we met, while another fifteen were mine before we met. My daughter Dolly is the oldest of my litter, while her son Dylan is the oldest of hers, meaning the two of them do a lot of the work for us when we’re not home. Which... okay, yeah, maybe we shouldn’t hoist so much responsibility onto them at their age, but they always offer to help!

Exactly! It might’ve been easier for us to stick with what we had, but... as one’s relationship develops, your family ends up growing as a result; hence our next fifteen shared between us. The rest we took in from shelters or off the streets, which adds us up to a quite round ninety-nine.

Dolly and Dylan included makes it a hundred-and-one, by the way. And that’s a big number, especially in our house. But we make it work! Besides, one of the best parts of having ninety-nine puppies to come home to after a long day’s work are the big, group hug piles I get swept up in the moment I walk through the door – seeing their smiling faces yipping and yapping away makes those long days worthwhile.

I couldn’t agree more, honey. Being a nurse is an intensive job, even for a dog, and sometimes, I must admit, I do get a bit overwhelmed by it all. But our puppies know how to liven our spirits after a particularly grueling shift for the both of us... even if some of them are often getting into trouble.

As puppies do.

As puppies do, yes – we were both puppies as well, remember. Though these days, it’s as if a puppy’s urge to cause mischief has only grown since I was a puppy. And for as much as we trust Dylan and Dolly to keep an eye on their siblings, they’re quite often the harbingers of such mischief.

...I mean, we get involved sometimes too, if it’s fun. Or if it annoys Clarissa.

That... is a fair point.