In Which We Are Attacked By Adorability

I had a fuzzy wuzzy puppy moment today. It was one of those times where I kicked myself a little for not having my camera. 'Twas as follows:

John and I took advantage of the current ridiculously perfect weather by meandering about and venturing a ways up a eucalyptus lined path. At the top lay a shell of an abandoned building that looked out over an orchard of an indeterminate fruit, and we took a moment to enjoy the view and the sweet aromatics the eucalyptus provided (especially as the trash on our normal dump route was pretty firey today... the acrid smoke lingered over our path as we held our breath and ran through it).

And then, from one corner of the building, a small black puppy came trotting out and spied us standing there. It immediately froze - it wasn't sure what to make of us. It's little nose sniffed once or twice, its tail gave an uncertain wag, and it came no closer. Instead, staring straight at us, it gave a sharp bark or two.

There was a rustle of movement from the other side of the building.

Three more tiny adorable baby dogs came tumbling out of one of the archways to see what the commotion was about. They used their tiny puppy legs to stumble to a properly safe-but-curious distance from John and me (at this point, I might have squealed). I immediately dropped to my haunches and held out an open hand and it was only a matter of seconds before I had four balls of fur licking the salt off my skin and succumbing to scritches behind their ears.

DAWWWWWW SO CUTE.

John and I then had quite the time getting back on our walking route - the little nuglets insisted on following us back down the lane. This would have been fine except for the fact CARS often passed by on the connecting road and we didn't want to be the cause of puppy roadkill. After about 15 minutes, we finally made our escape when I hid behind some bushes and John gently herded them back up the road. They followed him back down almost to the end but luck was on our side - a brief distraction had all their heads turned and John quickly joined me in the camouflage of the shrubbery. We inched our way up the road and were relieved to find the puppies had been sufficiently fooled. No dead baby dogs on OUR collective conscience. Whew!

They kind of looked like these (four black ones and one brown one) except I can pretty much guarantee you that unlike THESE pups, they WEREN'T purebred dobermans: