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I remember several months ago Lindsay was talking about breeding her Chocolate Lab, Izzy. She had arranged a little rendezvous with the betrothed male so the dogs could become acquainted. But Izzy appeared to be a bit old-fashioned and wanted little to do with Hooch.    It took a few romantic dinners, flowers and candles before Izzy finally warmed up to him.  This week, Izzy gave birth to eleven pups, though three unfortunately didn’t make it.  Lindsay can add “Canine Midwife” to her resume because she had to cut the sack and umbilical cord for each pup. (On a personal note: eewww!) Amazingly, five hours after the tenth pup was born, another little guy decided to join the party! Kind of makes you wonder if he got lost or something.  She said there are six black ones, two yellow ones and zero chocolate ones…We should ask her what the mailman’s dog looks like. Anyway, Lindsay hasn’t had much sleep lately because she has to make sure the pups eat every three hours. Izzy is a little rough with them so they have to keep separate for now. Although exhausted, Lindsay is really excited. I’m sure it will be fun to watch them grow, at least until they start chewing on the coffee table legs, demolishing wallets and high heels, eating the last few pages of her mystery novel, sorting the contents of the kitchen trash, shredding toilet paper, regurgitating stuff that looks like it belongs at the bottom of a pond, and sprinkling quarter-sized yellow orbs underneath the dining room chairs. (Can you tell I’ve owned a few behaviorally-challenged dogs in my lifetime?) Actually, I had to give up my psychotic toy poople a few months ago.  I had adopted him and we put up with each other’s idiosyncrasies for five years. But he breached our contract: I would feed him and he wouldn’t bite me. I knew he was a fear biter shortly after I brought him home so I’d just keep him away from people I liked, but when he started chomping on me, that was the end of our agreement. I hated to do that, but I really need all my fingers. Although me, Maggie and Susan don’t have any pets now, I took an office poll and found that we are definitely dog people here at Stuckey and Company.  Except for Mary’s toothless cat, Chris Irvin’s bird and Rachel’s seven horses, everybody else has dogs. I counted sixteen!…or twenty-four if you count Izzy’s pups too. Now that’s a lot of barking!