HUSH, PUPPIES by Catherine Nichols
HUSH, PUPPIES
by Catherine Nichols
The vet returned my call as I was rolling the last wineglass in bubble wrap. In counterpoint to my curt hello, he sounded upbeat, even jovial. He explained that when Mags had been spayed last month, the operation had sent her hormones haywire. “That’s why she’s behaving like she’s pregnant,” he summed up. “It’s a textbook case.”
The “textbook case” was curled beside the stove in a cardboard box she had commandeered during my week of packing. She’d stuffed it with laundry from the overflowing hamper. Each time I approach, she whined.
“It’s all in your head,” I told her, shoving the phone into my pocket. “Snap out of it.”
Her eyebrows twitched. Then she sighed, wriggling deeper into the mound of dirty tees, her silky muzzle resting on her paws.
Alex returned with the U-Haul around one. After much hemming and hawing on both sides, I was making the move to his place. I updated him on Mags’ condition. In the several hours since the vet’s call, she had whelped. At her swollen teats were Alex’s favorite Nikes that she’d dragged from under the bed.
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