This is a very short entry again because I am absolutely exhausted. We have puppies.
In fact we have got eight puppies.
We left the dogs at home this morning when we went to work on the camper van, because my dog was still not very well, and Mark’s dog was looking a bit round and tired.
When we got home we discovered my dog in a state of panic and Mark’s dog upstairs next to our bed, with wildly rolling eyes and three black puppies on the tattered remnants of her quilt, which she had torn to shreds in a last minute realisation that she needed a nest.
One of them, terribly, was tiny, and had died. Mark blew down its nose and tried to revive it, but we were too late, it didn’t make it.
We realised then that another one was on the way.
Over the next few hours we sat with her and made encouraging noises and fed her Good Dog Sausages and water whilst she produced another black puppy, then a black one with white spots, then two white ones with black spots, and eventually two brown ones. We had a small panic with one of the white ones, which bled from its umbilical cord quite drastically, and Mark had to pinch it tight with some cotton wool until it stopped, which it did in the end, and it didn’t seem to have suffered any ill effects.
It was very messy.
After the last one we dragged the quilt out from underneath her and Mark took it out to the dustbin. We gave her one from the camper van instead. She was not at all pleased about this, having nicely prepared the other one by ripping it into small bits, and also by saturating it in blood and afterbirth and other generally vile smelling substances. I felt some sympathy but it is on the floor on my side of the bed and I do not like the smell of decaying afterbirth that much.
After an initial panic she settled back down with the unwanted quilt and her huge and very squeaky litter. Once the initial surprise had worn off she obviously decided to be very pleased with them, as were we.
We had known she was expecting puppies but had thought probably three or four. I suppose given that she has been resembling a very round barrel with a leg at every corner for the last fortnight we might have suspected that there would be more.
Once she was comfortably curled up on her new quilt we realised that it was half past one in the morning, and we were starving. We staggered downstairs to wolf down the remains of the cheese with some crackers and leftover chicken and now we are going to bed.
They are terribly noisy.
It’s a jolly good job we are so tired.
