Some time during summer, Sarah decided to be fertile again. Naturally Merlin noticed this fact and attempted to explain to us exactly what he wanted to do about it. However, we knew his intentions were... ah, let us say "less than honorable."

So we most carefully took Sarah for tips outside on a leash and separate from Merlin, and she had to wear a diaper around the house when she wasn't in her crate, etc.

We were soooooooo careful

As the vet said when we took Sarah in for her checkup (just after she said something about Sarah being 'with puppy' again (quoting): "And you never thought to lock Merlin up, now did you? Someone was in here yesterday who caught their dobermans mating through the crate."

Yeah right

To make a long story short we finally realized that one afternoon they had about two uninterrupted and unsupervised hours together... And the result was puppies in September.

Partially through embarassment (at being outwitted by Merlin and Sarah), and partially because the camera broke at a most inopportune moment ("you need to send that model back to Japan for repairs, sir ..."), we don't have nearly the number of shots of Sarah's second that we did from her first.

(BTW for those of you wondering, we had a little trip to the vet a few months ago, and Sarah and Merlin are premanently out of the puppy manufacturing business.)

Merlin said to tell everyone that — again — it was no trouble at all and he had a great time.

Sarah asked me to relate to the world that (quoting) "Even if that big lummox never does this to me again, I'm gonna bite his [censored] off. Also tell them to send LOTS of food -- I'm starving."

This time, we have only two sets of pictures ...