LOL! Breeder Lindsay sends the latest pile of puppy pictures. Here's Cassie's new courtier. She needs a name! Anybody got any ideas?

Her cute little ears are up...awww! The were still funny little folds the last time we saw her. And just look at the expression on that face: "What are you doing and what can I do to mess with your mind?"

The Queen of the Universe and Empress of All Time, Space, and Eternity will be, shall we say, amazed when she meets this little critter.

Her Majesty seems to be feeling better today. Yesterday she had a bit of a relapse -- doggywobbles and that kind of green-around-the-gills look that says "U-r-r-r-p!". But today she's back to normal. If she shows ANY sign of peakedness next week, it's off to the vet with her...don't want that pup exposed to anything. But so far, so good today: walked the human around the block, threw the ball at the human (many, many times), hid the ball in the shrubbery and pretended it was lost so as to make the human get off its duff, loved up a small child or two, attracted catcalls from one of the young gang-bangers who cruises the 'hood. All in all, a productive day.

I'm more concerned about eating and sleeping arrangements than about how Her Exalted Highness will get along with Pup. Because Charley the Golden Retriever would have inhaled Cassie's food before she could eat it, when he was being babysat here I would always feed her in the back bedroom. Major nuisance. I'd like to get them to eat together (well...within a few feet of each other, that is) in the kitchen.

Her Eminence sleeps on the bed (was there ever any other possibility?). The bed is one of those astronomically tall things, really ridiculous -- even I practically need a stepstool to get into it -- and so I'm not thrilled about the possibility of a puppy falling off of it. Cassie fell off once, shortly after she escaped her imprisonment in the Tower of London...uhm, the Dog Pound. Since then, she's been careful to ensconce herself a little further from the edge.

Presumably Pup will be crated, at least for the first few weeks. But then what? The Royal Bed could get a little crowded with two dogs and one  human occupying it. Guess we'll just have to see how things go.

Meanwhile, between now and the 8th or 9th, the dog fences need to be reinstalled around the flowerbeds, the puppy gates retrieved from storage, the screen cloth tied to the front gates so pup can't squeeze through the wrought-iron rails, food acquired, chew toys acquired, possibly new dog toys acquired.

LOL! I'm thinking I'll do a give-away at my blog, Funny about Money: an advance copy of my new diet/recipe book for the winning puppy name entry. :-D That, though, will require a PDF to exist sometime in the very near future. Clients have been making me crazy this week, leaving barely a minute or two to squeeze out for my own projects.

Oh well. The Queen summons!