Litter I - Imladris: Pembroke Welsh Corgi puppies, 2023

Litter I — Our First Litter

Litter I was our very first litter and the first generation of puppies from Eevee. At the time, we did not yet have our own registered kennel, Holy Paws, so the litter was officially registered under the Sababa Shire kennel name.

Four puppies were born — two boys and two girls. They were special to us simply because they were our first: our first experience with whelping, our first sleepless nights, our first daily weigh-ins, and the incredible experience of watching four tiny newborns turn, right before our eyes, into little dogs, each with a personality of their own.

Two puppies from this litter — a boy, Alfie, and a girl, Miley — later earned their Israeli Junior Champion titles. We are sure their show careers could have continued, but their owners chose first and foremost for them to be beloved family dogs rather than pursue showing and breeding. Of course, we are a little sorry about that, but we fully respect their choice.

What made this litter especially memorable, however, was something entirely different.

When the puppies were only about three weeks old, October 7, 2023 came, and the war began. A time that should have been filled with the ordinary concerns of raising a litter was suddenly filled with anxiety, constant news, and events no one could have been prepared for.

And in the middle of all this, four little corgis were growing up in our home.

They needed very simple and understandable things: food, warmth, clean puppy pads, play, and human hands to care for them. With them, it was possible, at least for a little while, to stop reading the news and simply sit on the floor, watching the puppies learn to walk, play, and discover the world.

And they helped not only us. During those weeks, friends and acquaintances came to visit — sometimes simply to spend an hour among the puppies. We jokingly called it “puppy therapy,” but there was actually quite a lot of truth behind the joke: four little corgis became, for many of us, a small island of normal life in a very abnormal time.

Perhaps that is why Litter I will always hold a special place in our hearts. It was our first, but that is not the only reason. These puppies came into our lives at a moment when we especially needed something alive, warm, and completely unaware of what was happening beyond the walls of our home.

(By the way, this litter almost had a completely different theme. Since the puppies were Litter I, Zhenya suggested dedicating all four of them to Steve Jobs and calling them iPhone, iPad, iMac and iPod at home. I firmly rebelled against turning our house into an Apple branch, and eventually we reached a compromise: Little iPhone would remain Little iPhone, while the other home names would have to come from The Big Bang Theory.

And that is how Sheldon son of Indiana and Little Bazinga — our affectionate version of Sheldon’s famous “Bazinga!” — came to be. Things were a little more complicated with the other girl: to Zhenya she was Penny (or, more precisely, PennyPennyPennyAThousandTimesPenny), to me she was Toffee, while our daughter called her Little Beaver.

So officially we were raising elves, while at home Middle-earth, The Big Bang Theory, and one accidental surviving representative of Apple all coexisted under the same roof.)