Note: When a litter of adoptable, adorable, healthy puppies is maybe 50 yards away from my office desk, I am compelled to break my own rule of not featuring dogs up for adoption. I was armed only with my cell phone for photos, and these puppies are wiggly and snuggly – you’ll just have to see them for yourself. Oh, that new puppy smell!

With Cheri Bovee at Dirty Paws Pet Spa.

Waitsfield, Vermont. I drove to upstate New York, about 2 1/2 hours. It was very, very rural. They had kept her [the puppies’ mother] chained to the axle of a pickup truck, but it was supposed to rain so they put her in the pickup truck. When we arrived it was 92 degrees, and she was in that truck. No windows open.

The litter has four females and one male. They are nine weeks, they’ve had their first set of shots, they’ve been wormed three times. They’ve seen Dr. Hadden from the day after they were born.

Re-homing fee to adopt a puppy is $250 each. The mother has been adopted out already. My goal is to give every dog a home of their own, with their own boy or girl – a place of their own.

Visit the lab-mix puppies at Dirty Paws Pet Spa, 5081 Main Street, Waitsfield, Vermont. Telephone: 802-496-7297.