That's What Happens When You Feed Them

On one of our daily walks last week, I passed by a woman walking her retriever-mix dog who was about the same size as my pups.  We chatted for a few minutes while her dog wagged its tail and inspected my two, who were cowering in fear behind my legs.  I mentioned to her that after all the rain we have been having recently, it was nice to get out in the sunshine so my two could burn off some puppy energy.  She looked at me strangely and asked how old they were.  When I told her they were seven months old, she looked at me with equal parts horror and great amusement.  "On my" she said.  "They are going to be BIG!"  Her dog, as it turns out, was almost two years old and currently seeing eye-to-eye with Bodie and Leila.  Or, more correctly, would have been seeing eye-to-eye with them if they bothered to peek out from behind me and stopped trying to flee.  Yeah, we're still working on that.

But it got me to thinking, just how big have these two gotten, anyway?  I see them every day so they look the same to me.  When my husband comes home from a trip away for a few days, he swears they are taller than when he left.  It isn't until I go through some old photos that I hear myself saying "Look how small and cuddly they were!"  To be fair, they are still quite cuddly, but the "small" part might be debatable.  Especially when I am picking up dog poop in the back yard....ain't nothing small about that!

Before Bodie and Leila came to live with us, I bought a stuffed Bernese Mountain Dog toy online that my kids named "Bernie".  (the name tag on the toy said its name was "Trevor"....who the heck names a dog "Trevor"?)  The first thing I wanted to do was take a photo with Bodie and Leila next to Bernie for comparison's sake.  That proved to be a hilarious task in itself, trying to get two wiggly puppies to sit still long enough for me to snap a photo.  Back then they had not learned the art of the "stay put and you'll get a treat" ploy that they fall for so easily nowadays.  But back then, there was not a great difference in size between the two of them and Bernie.  Today, one has to look closely to even see Bernie at all....it's like a canine version of "Where's Waldo?"  I took their latest group shot yesterday and marvel at how tall and majestic they have become in such a short time.  Where did those roly-poly fluff balls from September go?

I'm sure that by this time next year I'll be looking at yesterday's photo and saying "Remember when they were eight months old and we thought they were sooooo big then?"

Stay tuned.....




ages in photos (in order): 10 1/2 weeks, 11 1/2 weeks, 3 1/2 months, 4 1/2 months, 6 1/2 months, 7 months, 8 months