[LaRositaMonita]

The puppies are here. Unfortunately, we are not doting, smiling, or squealing as much as we would like... and, if anything, we need some good advice.

I will preface this by saying that the 10+ puppies post from two days ago was made under the impression that we saw and had confirmed that this many pups were inside mommy. Not so much...this was just based on our breeder and her vet's external impression of what was going on.

Our mommy dog currently has five living, breathing puppies. There were seven originally in her litter, but one was what they called a "mega-puppy" or a "water-puppy" - a puppy who has serious genetic defects that cause it to die in the womb and then fill with fluid to a very large size. This puppy wound up endangering the lives of the whole litter and nearly killed the mother. Apparently the vet was shocked beyond belief that mother or puppies even survived. Needless to say, we were glad that mommy and five puppies are okay but very sad about the rest.

Additionally, we had out hopes set on - and were by all accounts led to believe - that we would be able to have a tri-color dog from this litter, as blue merles are really not something we like. Of course, the litter consists of one tri-color male and four merle females. It looks like the male is the dominant puppy of the litter (not something we can handle), and is also probably, if things go as our breeder thinks it will over the next 8 weeks, the show pick of the litter. Needless to say, we are questioning whether or not to compromise one of the things we really wanted in our puppy.

On one hand... we're talking color. That's superficial, really. I at least feel guilty and selfish for being picky. On the other hand, we have put SO much work into this dog search. Shouldn't we be able to get just the dog we want?

I e-mailed our "backup" Pembroke breeder to check in with her, reiterate our interest, and see what she has on the ground so far (ideally, we were set to check back with her at the end of this month). I also talked a little to our breeder about this decision and got a name of a breeder 3 hours away from us who just actually had a litter of 11 cardigans in case she has something available.

What are you guys thinking? Am I being crazy and vain? If my head sounds unclear as I write this, it is. Basically, I've already had a fairly bad and draining day for some other, unrelated reasons and getting this phone call was the icing on the cake. I'm confused and overwhelmed at this point.