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Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Irish/Ilo Puppies; Birthday!

Baby New Year - Male - 13oz

Navidad - Male - 12oz

Jingle - Male - 15oz 

Dreidel - Male - 1lb 1oz

Solstice - Female - 1lb 1oz

Hanukkah - Female - 14oz

Kwanzaa - Female - 1lb

Festivus - Male - 1lb 2oz

We've got a house full! Irish had eight puppies beginning mid morning on Monday, December 10th. As you may recall from a previous post, this was an unexpected litter. Following suit, she had them four days early which was also unexpected!

A trip to the vet on Saturday for an x-ray, indicated she would have eight to nine puppies. Hoping for a small litter, I was in shock. After picking myself up off the floor, however, I let go of what can not be controlled and decided the best thing to do was to move forward with anticipation and excitement. This new information also prompted some phone calls and emails to those who had expressed interest in pups in the past so we could make sure that those pups not staying here at Points Unknown would have the very best adoptive homes.

Gestation in our line of dogs is typically 63 days. To be prepared, we mark off 60-63 days as a due date range. Since all of my litters were at 63 days, I wasn't as prepared as I should have been, when, at 60 days, in the mid morning, in her crate, after having been outside in the yard for a while, I noticed Irish pushing! Yikes! I rushed her down to the whelping box after a quick glance to make sure a puppy wasn't visible and at the split second we arrived in the whelping box, the first pup arrived! Of course, we were both a bit disoriented and it took Irish a minute to figure out what was going on. It took me another several minutes. She quickly broke open the sack to reveal our first male puppy. She licked him clean and severed the umbilical chord. Then, she wanted the heck out of there! Every time I went to the door, she was up and right behind me. Needless to say, I didn't go to the door again and just sat in the whelping box with her.

After the second puppy, it was old hat for her and she didn't even bother to get up for the arrival of a new pup and, instead, remained still so that the others could drink on a stationary milk bar. She also showed no concern about my attempts at departure. After number three, she decided she'd rather not have me present, or at least this is what I gathered as, whenever I would head upstairs to get something, another puppy was present upon my return. She had everything under control.

It all began at roughly 10:30AM and was over, with everything and everyone all cleaned up by 3PM. Eight puppies were born in four and a half hours. Eight healthy puppies. We've got five males and three females. Male puppies in this line have been illusive so it was so fun to see all of the males.

Our first night with puppies went better than expected too. I got up at 1AM to see if she needed anything. Nope. Didn't even get up. At 7AM, I had to actively coax her to get up to go outside. She reluctantly agreed and then came promptly back down to her puppies. She left no mess over night and made not one peep. This has got to be the best whelping experience I've had to date and this with a very young mother and an unexpected litter. We are so looking forward to watching these puppies grow. Irish sure matured by leaps and bounds just over night!



3 comments:

  1. While unexpected, do you know which of the males around her were responsible for the pregnancy?

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    1. Yes we do. Here's the link to the post that will give you the story. It was our lovely Ilo. A very good breeding, just not planned. http://topointsunknown.blogspot.com/2012/11/expect-unexpected.html

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    2. It appears as though you'll need to cut and past the link.

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