It’s National Puppy Day! To celebrate, I’m sharing puppy pictures of my little Romeo. (Most of my furbabies have been rescues, already young adults or older, so I have very few, if any, baby photos of the rest of my dogs and cats.)

Romeo was meant to be a “gift” for my senior dog, Scruffy. Scruff had recently lost his best feline buddy Tiger. At first I considered another kitten. Then I realized that Scruff (a Jack Russell / Schnauzer mix) had only ever had one doggy friend – Riley, who broke his heart when she moved to Texas. Scruff loved playing with other dogs, but they didn’t like playing with him. He was too energetic! A puppy, I reasoned, could match Scruffy’s energy.

And then I found Romeo.

Yes, newborn baby Romeo was a rescue! His pregnant mother had been turned into a shelter and had five puppies.

My first meeting with Romeo (who turned out to be a Jack Russell / Shih Tzu mix) went really well! Here he is, giving me the first of what would be many, many kisses.

Scruffy was known as “the mighty toy destroyer”, notorious for pulling all the stuffing out of toys within minutes. I didn’t want Scruffy to think Romeo was a toy and try to pull his stuffing out, so initially I confined Romey to a puppy playpen.

Scruffy was super excited to be a big brother, and Romeo absolutely adored him. They were together all the time. Sleeping …

“Feeling cute. Might terrorize our feline siblings later. We dunno.“

Or playing.

I loved to see these two playing together. It was so sweet how Scruffy let Romeo “win” in tug-of-war. Letting him “growl” and shake his head and puppy *ss, and inch back a few inches … then, so funny when Scruff got bored and walked off with the toy, dragging Romeo behind him!

“Smell my feet!”

“I do not understand this new, interactive toy in my toy box.”

When Scruffy needed a break from Romeo, he’d simply jump onto my high sleigh bed. In this picture, you can see Scruffy loved books just like his mommy – except I like to read them, and he liked to destroy them. When I snapped the photo, by sheer luck I happened to catch a very determined little Romeo climbing his way onto the bed for the very first time while Scruffy napped, sweetly unaware.

Scruffy took his role as a big brother seriously, showing Romeo the ropes and training him to be his mini-me. The two soon got into all sorts of shenanigans together.

“Quick! Take this paper towel and clean up that mess before Mom sees it.”

“Kiddo, when Mom and Dad start arguing in the car we can steal the food in their fast food bags. We’ll have about five minutes to chow down before they notice. I like the Impossible Whopper, but you look like a fries kind of guy to me.”

“Listen closely, Romeo. Look cute for the camera – that’s really all you’re good at. Once Daddy finds out we locked all the doors with the keys inside, crank the air conditioner and radio up, so we can’t hear him yelling. When the locksmith comes, we’ll let him him fiddle around for awhile before we roll down the windows to see what’s going on. Got that, Grasshopper? I’m not always going to be around, so you need to learn all this stuff fast.”

“There they go again … off for frappacinos. Why is it they never bring back any highly caffeinated, highly sugared drinks for US?”

Sugar Crash

Sadly, Scruffy has passed. Romey G. is a middle-aged country boy now who favors plaid and still gets up to mischief. (Scruffy would be proud.) He’s also much fuzzier.

And he still saves all his kisses for me.

Always remember … ADOPT, DON’T SHOP!