I have decided that even though there are 6,000 (I exaggerate, but barely) delightful and varied photographs that I could share with you, today is a perfect day for the next installment in our "SPOTLIGHT ON" series. Today we have Spotlight On: Brindle Boy (Beebee to his friends and birth family). You will notice that in most of these photos, the puppies are wearing color-coded collars for easier identification. (We don't need them in person, but it's become very tricky to differentiate them in the photographs - and I don't think I need to tell YOU how important that is!)

Please start with the photo from Friday, called "triangle." This will illustrate two things for you: 1) These puppies are adorable and are very adept at finding geometrically logical ways to stay warm. And, 2) Friday's photo batch was cute, but not that great. Still, I feel compelled to give you at least one thing from each day since birth. (See notes about "back issues" and "online" below if you are a new or recent subscriber.) In "triangle" we see little Beebee cuddling up to Roo and to Beegee's hind quarters. Good thing for Beebee and Roo that these puppies have not yet mastered the bullmastiff art of the ... well, it rhymes with "art."

Next, let your eyes wander over to "kissy," where you see the brother being absolutely adorable with his littlest sister, Roo. Fawn is tucked right behind Roo; you can see one of her precious little Craft Project Ears(tm) sticking out, while Beegee is sleepily serving as a headrest for Roo and an armrest for Beebee. (For the uninitiatied, bullmastiff puppy ears are so delightful at this age; they look like two tiny triangles of thick felt that have been glued together. You can see the "seam" and everything. Perhaps you'll get a close-up photo of this phenomenon soon.)

Now, please enjoy "beebee-serious" before you move onto the boy's shenanigans. In "serious" you see what a handsome little devil this boy is. In the final two photos, you see what a just-plain-devil he is. In "attempt" he is endeavoring to escape from the box these critters call home. Must remember to keep the whelping box door firmly in place.

"Water" requires a bit of explanation. Breeder Chris Rasmussen put a shallow dish of water in the pen for the puppies, as they were exhibiting signs of thirst. When I went in to marvel at their puppy cuteness a short while later, I found Beebee sleeping in the dish of water. He didn't get the point of this foreign entity in his pen, although perhaps he has a future as an enthusiast of the open seas. He quickly underwent an intensive drying and cuddling process to reaffirm his faith in the Warm, Safe and Dry, and the water dish was removed for now. Maybe it will return later this week.

So, this afternoon I bring you a melange of photos, with no particular theme. But before I start, let me just tease you with this nugget: Tomorrow there is BIG NEWS. As a former newspaper lady, it is in my blood to deliver news that is at least a day old. So I already know what tomorrow's news is and boy is it fun. Stay tuned, please, and enjoy today's offerings in the meantime.

First, feast your eyes on "roo-close." I may be biased, yes, I am in fact biased, as I always gravitate toward the littlest ones (dating back to Mini Dog, my first mine-all-mine puppy in the early 1980s). So I pegged Roo as my "favorite" from the beginning, although the others are all tied for an extremely close second. But no one, even the staunchest cat person, could deny that this is a darling photo of little Roo. Print it out and frame it.

"Three-faces" shows the two brindles (boy in the middle, wearing the all-orange collar) with little Roo-Roo, just hanging out and hamming it up for the camera. In "four-kissies," Fawn and Beegee are having a smooch while Roo and Beebee seem to be curious about trying it out themselves.

Brace yourselves, please, for the adorability that is "beegee-smiling." My goodness. Of course the authoress/editrix knows that dogs don't smile, not really, no. But it certainly looks like she is in on the joke, doesn't it?

The first newsflash: PUPPIES' DIET CHANGES. The puppies started eating solid food on Tuesday morning! Well, mushy food, not exactly solid, but not just the same ol' Milk from Mama they've been drinking since birth. A mixture of Canidae dog food, Esbilac milk replacer powder, and water was presented to these hungry pups first thing in the morning (extremely early for the photographeress, I might add). A plate of messy slop was placed before them, and those little chowhounds seemed to have no questions about what they should do. They dug right in. See "fawn-delish" for an action shot of a puppy enjoying her first bites of food.

Next, see "piefight," which illustrates the result of puppies eating messy slop. Here, hungry Beebee licks excess food off the jowls of little Beegee, and they present what one pre-publication photo viewer described as the appearance of having been in a pie fight. Hence the file name. The astute observer will see the video camera in the background of the photo. Yes, puppy videos are being made for my cable access program. You can buy a copy of the video for just $19.95; shipping and handling is just $49.95.

I know what you're thinking: So much food! These puppies aren't used to eating all this food! The gastronomical impact must be devastating! Well, click on "roo-groan" to see Little Roo in the aftermath of her first mush meal. She was nestled in my arms and kept making these little groans that sounded not unlike certain relatives after a big Thanksgiving dinner, and promptly fell asleep, not unlike certain relatives after a big Thanskgiving dinner. (Apologies to our Norwegian friends, who probably do not celebrate Thanksgiving or have a good concept of how inflated the $49.95 shipping and handling charge is.)

In "footrest," you see the puppies after their first meal in the bathtub. Now, a big shout out to Cathy Campbell of Iowa, who is in Maryland for two weeks to care for the puppies, just as she did with last year's litter. Ms. Campbell, or Mom as she's known to me, is the innovator who created two breakthrough puppy technologies. One: Feed the puppies their slop in the bathtub, because it's much easier to clean up when they're still uncoordinated and very messy. (Bathtub photos exist, but none made the cut; look for them in my forthcoming book, BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE DAILY PUPPY FIX.) The second piece of technology comes later, with the second bit of Breaking News. Anyway, after their sloppy meals, the puppies got wiped down with a wet cloth and then went back into their pen to shiver and cuddle with each other and take advantage of the body heat put forth by the leg of unsuspecting assistant puppy cuddler Kim Soehnlein. Could you imagine anything more adorable than that pile of puppies?

Well, sure you can. It's (second newsflash): PUPPIES IN A LITTER BOX. The aforementioned Cathy Campbell, aka Mom, engineered the brilliant idea last year to put a litter box in the puppies' pen. And last year they eventually used it for its intended purpose with great success. This year, to my surprise, the box was put out yesterday. Last night I came home to find two puppies sleeping in the litter box. Luckily no one had used it properly yet, so it was a hygienic nap. Please see "littermates" for a photo of three of the little ones sitting around in the box, absolutely bewildered about what they are supposed to do with this strange new substance in their pen. (At least they knew not to eat it.)

Meanwhile, a nod to an anonymous reader whose initials are Jean in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, who points out that not everyone knows that "brindle" refers to the coat color of the two darker puppies. To quote from Webster's: "brindle - adj : having a gray or brown streak or a pattern or a patchy coloring; used especially of the patterned fur of cats."

Mr. Webster's feline biases aside, you get the idea.

First, please enjoy the photographic offerings. Witness, for example, "blankie-cuddles2," which shows the puppies wrapped in their favorite piece of purple fleece for extra warmth on a chilly night. Beegee is sleepily looking at the camera while Beebee snoozes sweetly beside her. (If you don't know by now, Roo is the redder of the two non-brindles and Fawn is the paler one.)

I cannot help but enrich your day with "brindles-eye," which shows those playful brindle babies in action. Here Beegee has her paw strategically covering one of brother Beebee's eyes. Note the beautiful brindling pattern on her! She is an exquisite piece of work. (For a definition of brindle, please refer to yesterday's DAILY PUPPY FIX or consult your local dictionary, with help from www.dictionary.com if you are a linguistic heathen and do not own such a book).

You know I love Roo. You know my bias. So take a gander at "roo-pawbite." This photograph needs no introduction or explanation or over-the-top adjectival phrases like "absolutely adorable" or exclamations like "good golly." This photo speaks for itself.

Y'all ready for this? Check out, if you can stand it, "fawn-cuddly." Little Miss put on quite the darling show last night while she was surrounded by the aforementioned purple fleece, the others snoozing distantly in the litterbox (yes, they're still mostly just sleeping in there, but that will change, I assure you). She rolled about and pulled on the blanket with her precious little mouth, and then posed for me after I pulled the blanket over her in an effort to ratchet up the cuteness about 6,000 decibels. Now, here, what you've been waiting for is the SPECIAL OFFER FOR SUBSCRIBERS: Today the Editrix/ Authoress/ Photographeress (**please see disclaimer below**) is making available a very special one-time-only (ha!) video clip segment of Fawn's Diva Hour.
You can get it by e-mail for free, absolutely free, but here is the catch - it weighs a hefty 565k, so judge accordingly. Also, it requires a media player that will play Windows Media Video files. (My good friends in Iowa who are, strangely, Macintosh loyalists have said such files play for them on their fancy new gigantascreen PowerBook, fyi.) If you would like a copy of the video, which has no sound and lasts 20 goshdarned precious seconds, please e-mail me. As a special bonus, you can receive a photo (not the highest quality) that accompanies this stunning news bit:

THE BABIES HAVE TEETH SPROUTING THROUGH! This is perhaps not a newsflash for Mama Emmy, who is still occasionally giving forth her ample milk supply to the pups as they are transitioning to an all-mush diet. But last night that hilarious little Fawn tried to gnaw on me and I felt toothy nubs poking through. So if you want to see the nubs, indicate that in your e-mail and I'll include it. It is not, I must say, the most fascinating piece of photography, which is why I am not making it available to the wider audience except by request.

**Disclaimer: While I sometimes refer to myself as the Photographeress, documenting these puppies is a household effort and you are seeing a mix of photographic talents by yours truly, Breeder/Owner/Handler Chris Rasmussen, Assistant Puppy Cuddler Kim Soehnlein, and (if she ever gets over her phobia of the digital camera) My Mom, Puppy Nanny Cathy Campbell. I am the sole authoress and editrix of this publication, however, and I take full responsibility for all the vim and vigor you're reading here. (I also take responsibility for any typos or grammatical mishaps, except when common sense leads me to believe that a word should be spelled "flues" instead of "flews.")**