Oh What a day. I am smiling all over.
My lovely dog Luna has been expecting puppies for what seems like months and months, but is only really about 9 weeks. Her due date was anytime between the 6th and 10th of November.
Last night (Nov 8th) she was really restless so I decided that I would stay up late with her, (this is her first litter and I didn't want her to feel scared and alone). I sat up with her all night and by 6am she was still scrabbling around and tearing paper. The family got up and the children started to get ready for school, and I decided that since people would be around I would take the chance to get a nap.
By 7am we had a puppy, it took four more hours before we had the second, a large puppy that Zy had to help out as it was stuck! Once she was delivered safely two more followed quite quickly. By 11.45am number three was snuggling with it's mummy and around noon she had puppy number four, but she bit the cord too close to it's tummy and it wouldn't stop bleeding. Zy got some linen thread and tied it around the cord and the bleeding stopped thank goodness. He is my hero, and I'm certain that puppy owes him it's life. He wrapped it in a towel and began rubbing it to warm it up. Very soon it was mewling for it's mummy and she happily took it off our hands. We thought she'd finished and cleaned everything up, let her out for a quick trip to the toilet and made her a light snack. While she was in the kitchen preparing to eat her dinner, puppy number 5 arrived, and we hurriedly cleaned them both up and popped her back into her birthing crate with the other puppies and the new arrival. Wow 2pm, and five puppies surely that was it?
Nope.
Once she was comfortably settled onto a set of fresh newspaper with her puppies all around her, we fondly counted heads, and then counted again.... hey..... 6??? Where'd that come from??
OMG another one? By now it was 3.10pm and we knew she must be exhausted and starving so we thought perhaps it was time to let her out for another toilet break and try again for something to eat, but before we could do that another head, and body and wiggly tail appeared. 4.05pm.
9 hours had given her 7 babies.
As I toweled the new arrival my Luna went for her toilet break and finally had her dinner, then flopped down and fell asleep.
7 healthy, happy puppies and one exhausted mum are now snoozing in the birthing crate, making little snuffling, mewling noises. It's so cute, and they're adorable.
I am so proud of her, she did a wonderful job, and is taking really great care of the babies.
She's a beautiful dog, my pride and joy and I haven't been this happy since my last baby was born.