Goodness, what a day it has been.
I am pleased to announce that we have four new poopies.
I knew when I came home from work last night that the Hour was very close. Rosie was not very keen to go out, and when she did go she kept sitting down, and looking at me in a puzzled sort of way. I hurried round the Library Gardens as fast as we could go, and put the torch on my telephone in case anything happened in an outdoor hurry.
I know that this sort of thing is very unlikely but it is her first litter, after all, and she did not have the first idea what was about to happen.
In the end she did not pop out any poopies in the Library Gardens, but promptly raced back up the stairs to her basket on our return. I ejected Roger Poopy from the basket, much to his chagrin, and left her to it whilst I had my shower.
No poopies when I had done, and so I went to bed, only to be aroused about ten minutes later by a frantic whine.
I put on my dressing gown and Roger and I went to hold her paw and make encouraging noises, and a little while later a large gingery poopy appeared.
Both Roger and Rosie stared at it in utter astonishment. Rosie was so surprised that she had no idea what to do with it, and I had to shove it under her nose before it occurred to her that it might be a good idea to lick it.
Her teeth are a bit oddly set and so she had trouble chewing through the umbilical cord, so in the end I had to help out with the scissors. Dog afterbirth is revolting. I did not allow her to eat it because my experience of dogs who eat their afterbirth is that the next thing that follows is violent diarrhoea. She did not seem very enthusiastic anyway, and I removed it hastily before she thought of it.
The next one did not appear for almost two hours, during which a lot of straining and grunting went on, and then suddenly two poopies appeared within seconds of one another, and the last one about half an hour later.
They are huge. She had a very hard time of it.
We were all worn out by then, because it was long after four, and judging that all of the excitement was over, Roger – no longer Roger Poopy, but Grown-Up Roger – and I went to bed.
He is quite worried about the poopies. Every time they make a noise, which is often, they are very noisy, he goes dashing over to see if there is anything he can do. Of course there never is, and he subsides next to the basket with heavy sighs.
We were up again by nine, roused by squeaky poopy noises, and went to inspect the proud but exhausted mother, and to provide her with some dog-breakfast in bed. It was the oddest sort of morning. The house and our lives felt profoundly silent, very tranquil and still, which most certainly wasn’t the case, because there were four noisy new arrivals. Still, we all tiptoed, as if somebody had laid a great muffling blanket over us all, and whispered, and sighed happily.
Of course there was some cleaning up to be done, and then after that there was The List. I settled Rosie and the poopies on some clean bedding. Last night’s bedding turned out to be so revolting that it was completely beyond saving and I put it directly into the dustbin, including one of the dog-towels, so I am going to need another dog towel soon. I do not have a problem finding old towels, but I think I am probably going to have to replace them with some new ones.
After all that fuss there was no question of going for our walk. Rosie was certainly not going to go, and Roger was curled anxiously on the floor next to her, and in any case it was raining. I compelled Roger to leave her side and come to be emptied in the Library Gardens, but that was it, and even then he scurried back at top speed in case Rosie had done anything else troubling whilst he was not looking.
After that I just wanted to do quiet things, so I turned my attention to The List.
Mark is coming back on Monday, and so some catering will be necessary.
It was on the List.
I made biscuits, and chocolate biscuits, and flapjack. It took me almost all of the day, in between rushing up and down the stairs whenever Rosie whined. She did this quite a bit. It took her a little while before she worked out that she was managing very nicely by herself and that she did not need either me or Roger or both of us dancing attendance every time a poopy rolled over or squeaked.
I have almost finished the List now, and so I have made another one. I do not wish to be listless over the weekend, I will never get anything done.
Have a picture of some new parents.
