Mom Always Liked You Better

We welcomed six new little beans to the Brandywine family on Sunday.

Which, by the atomic mother English shepherd clock, means that today (Thursday) or tomorrow will be Moving Day.

After Moving Day, Rosie will start to chill the fuck out. Since Sunday, she has literally not spent more than 30 seconds away from them. She eats in the whelping box, pees when I insist, and poos seldom and at implausible speeds.

I am hoping she consents to use the same corner of the living room she chose last time. It's a very convenient spot.

One of the things about Moving Day that has been consistent in the last three litters of ES born here is that one puppy is chosen as the Moving Day Scout. If I replace that pup in the whelping box, that's the one she will retrieve each time until Moving is accomplished.

That pup turns out to Mom' Favorite later on.

So in the spirit of participation, voting is open in the Moving Day Sweepstakes.

Vote in the comments for which pup will be chosen as Scout. I'll reveal the Chosen Pup's identity when the deed is done. One person will be chosen from among the correct votes to receive two dozen fresh Brandywine Farm eggs.

No names or genders, so as not to bias the voting. Here are the hamster-like heirs of Pip, in birth order:

Puppy 1

Puppy2

Puppy 3

Puppy 4

Puppy 5

Puppy 6

Which one will Mom choose?

Pupdate:

Well, this is unprecedented.

Rosie spent yesterday (Thursday) being squirrely and acting as if she was just about ready to grab a pup. She checked out the designated den corner by the fireplace several times.

Around dinnertime I came in from chores and Perfesser Chaos said he'd caught her picking up a puppy, but she quickly put it down when she saw him. And he did not take note of which puppy it was.

This morning, some time between 0830 and 1000, while I was upstairs, she moved all the hamsters to their new digs without being detected.

Damn.

Final Pupdate:

There sure was a lot of moving going on here.

The first several attempts, either Perfesser Chaos could not remember to take note of the puppy with whom he caught her slinking away, or I would find the entire Jolly Crew transported to the closet in the guest room, Sophia's crate, under the bed ...

But I have three data points on the first puppy to move -- in one case the only puppy to move, when PC left a door open for a while and then closed it without making a puppy count -- and unsurprisingly, Puppy #5 is Mom's Favorite.

Unsurprisingly because he is the only male pup, and Favorite Puppy of a Brandywine bitch is always my son, my son. They are the Jewish mothers of the dog world.

A few contestants apparently cheated by comparing the photos to the blow-by-blow descriptions of the pups I gave on Facebook as they were born.

But I didn't specifically forbid cheating.

Anyway, five contestants chose Puppy #5 and were each assigned a value on a six-sided die, which I rolled once.

Mr. Andrew Brouse, please collect your eggs!

(Ha! Andy always gets some eggs when he comes here anyway. Now he will just get more eggs.)

This is a relief, because I totally don't know about shipping eggs to Britain. And I refuse on principle to vacuum-pack and ship eggs to California to a person who has her own hens.