Two of the sweetest new additions to the Starlite office — at least in my definitely biased opinion — are my two puppies, Snuggles and Cuddles.  Or, as I like to call them, “no!” and “stop that!”

Seriously, I think they’re starting to believe those are their actual names.

Those who knew me in my BP (before puppies) days, know that I was never really an animal person.  I had a few fish growing up and a bunny that met an unfortunate demise one winter afternoon when my best friend’s large dog decided it wanted a new toy.  I like to think that is when my animal-loving heart turned cold, at least towards dogs.

But then, one Saturday afternoon last semester, no less than 7 Starlite leaders showed up in my office.  I was being a total loser working on paperwork, and they begged me to go with them to look at puppies.  I honesty am still not sure what happened next, but all of the sudden I found myself looking up puppy classifieds in the local newspaper.  Before I knew it, the 8 of us were off to Georgia to look at some puppies.

Our first scheduled stop was at an empty Office Depot parking lot.  After about five minutes, a van pulls in the parking lot.  Out comes the most country-looking man I have ever seen in my life.  He had a laundry basket with him, and nestled in a towel were the two cutest puppies I’d ever seen.

Okay, if we’re gonna be truthful, only one puppy was cute.  The other was just a runt and had weird hair.

Needless to say, I bought the cute puppy right there on the spot.  I put everyone to work: some went to the ATM for me (apparently cash is only accepted in the country-puppy business), some were calling to cancel our other puppy appointments, etc.  One particular girl was in charge of “talking to that man so he doesn’t drive off with my new puppy!  Watch him very, very closely.  Watch him as if your life depended on it, because it actually does.”

Once the puppy was in our possession, we did the most obvious thing: we took him to Target.  We took everything out of Laura’s purse and slipped my 2 lb. ball of fur inside.  I just walked around bewildered that I was suddenly a pet owner while the rest of the girls began throwing various items into our TWO carts.  Needless to say, when we got to the register, I had to sort through the junk the precious puppy items.

I had Snuggles for about two weeks when my roommate started mentioning the puppy I had left behind — the runt.  Each time I’d see her, she’d say something like “I wonder what that other puppy is doing right now without his brother…” with this sad look on her face.  So, because I’m absolutely ridiculous, I called Mr. Country back up and arranged to meet him in a well-lit parking lot to see the other puppy again.

I think we all can guess what happened next.

Today I’m the mother of two bouncing baby boys puppies.  It really does feel like having children… I have to feed them, clean up after them, etc.  They still sleep in a very tall laundry basket beside my bed although Snuggles has now learned how to use the holes in the side of the basket to crawl up it and then jump into my bed.  Cuddles follows suit, of course.

They have an actual infant playpen in the Starlite office that contains them (yeah, right) when they’re at the office.  We even let them go to programs with us during the week as long as there are no girls there who have pet allergies.  They’ve got plenty of outfits ranging from winter coats to actual puppy pajamas. 

And yes, I am still searching for a matching pair of pajamas for myself.  Let me know if you see any yellow pajamas with pink hearts all over them.