....Continued from last post:Thursday March 18th (Will's B-day), started off like any other day. We got Millie and Sambo off to school, and as mentioned before, I started preparing to go out of town. The plan was that I was going to go on a girl's trip with 4 other friends to a cabin near Zion's park. BS was going to take the kids to St. George where he had some work on Friday (Uncle Denny and Aunt Marcia were going to take them to lunch and the park while Sam worked). I was going to meet up with the fam Saturday morning and we were all going to Vegas to meet up with the Clark aunts and uncles and grandpa and grandma.
Except, when BS went to feed Daisy at 9:00 am, he heard little squeaks coming from Daisy's dog bed. He looked in and this is what he saw:
He called me down and we looked at each other in disbelief. We felt excited and confused. To understand our confusion, you have to refer to
here and
here.
Daisy was in heat in January so we tried to breed her again. After spending 5 days at the stud's house, the owner told us that it wasn't successful...nothing had happened between the 2 dogs. We decided that Daisy just wasn't meant to have pups. Who knew that getting a dog pregnant could be so hard?
But, there was 1 instance (a couple days before Daisy went to see the stud) where I let Daisy out of the garage while I ran the kids to school. It was 15-20 minutes tops. I came home and there was a golden retriever named Chopper hanging around our house. Nothing exciting was happening between the 2 but I panicked for a minute and decided nothing happened.
Over the last couple weeks it has been pretty obvious that Daisy was pregnant. Except after the last attempt, we had a hard time believing it, especially since "nothing happened." Well, something did happen, we just don't know when or who.
Right now, it doesn't matter because we have a litter of the cutest, sweetest pups. When we looked in Daisy's dog house she had 4 puppies. We quickly set-up a space for them in the storage room, whelping box and all (BS built it last Fall). We made it nice and cozy for her. She took to it, and in the next couple of hours she delivered
6 more! That makes
10! We awed at the maternal instincts Daisy had. She had no problem and did such a good job getting them all clean.
When we showed Will the puppies, he smiled and said, "They are trying to steal my birthday!" We laughed at that.
There were 7 males and 3 females. 1 runt and 1 weakling. 8 are white just like Daisy and 2 are darker.
I never thought having puppies would be exciting but our whole day was consumed by it. It was clear that our travel plans had gone down the toilet. I went to the school (again, to take teacher appreciation gift) and told Sambo and Millie the news. Both about the pups and also about no vacation. They were happy and bummed. But when they came home and saw them, they were just fine with not going on a trip anymore. Millie did say, "Darn Daisy, you have bad timing."
Which is true, but if she had waited just 8 hours longer, we would have left town and left her to have puppies outside in the cold.
The first night I didn't sleep at all. It was like the first night after having a newborn baby. I kept checking on them, worried they were getting squished or that some weren't eating. I spent the whole next day (BS was in St. George again) checking and rotating the pups trying to keep track of which ones were eating well and which ones weren't. Some of them are definitely more alpha than others and Daisy only has 6 good teets. Millie and I used different colors of nail polish dots on their heads to identify them, and Millie made up a chart so we can keep track of their feeding. She has been very sweet and constantly nurturing to them.
The bad news: 3 have died. The runt died first after 1 day. He was half the size of the others. The 2nd one died last night after struggling for 2 days - he was very lethargic and weak. We tried to bottle feed it and assist it to nurse and keep it warm, but we knew it would die eventually. The 3rd (one of the darker ones) died this morning which was a sad discovery to us. Just hours earlier it appeared to be healthy and strong, eating and active. The only thing we can think of is that it got smothered or something. After talking to several experienced folks and research on the internet, this happens often. Basically in a litter as large as 10 puppies, you can count on some not making it. It just happens. We have already used this experience to teach the kids about life and death. This has been so great and fun for the kids.
The good news: We have 7 healthy adorable puppies. Hopefully the Lucky 7. 5 males and 2 females. Can't believe how much they have grown already. They have fat little milk tummies all of the time and they don't wimper anymore. Daisy has relaxed and isn't so awkward when she tries to lay down by them (she was sitting on them sometimes on accident). We could not get her to leave the puppies other than to go potty twice/day. She has been them non-stop since Thursday morning. She is exhausted but she has been the best mama. Tonight for some reason she picked-up a pup in her mouth and took it to BS and dropped it in his lap. I guess that's her hint that is was his time to babysit and that she needed a break! He took her outside and threw the ball 20 times. She ran like nothing had happened. Why can't it be so easy for us? She had 10, and all of them sucking on her teets 24/7, and she's acting like it's no big deal.
Well, here they are tonight. They are quite the event of the neighborhood. They have lots of visitors and everyone is in love with them. We will update often.
It was really great having General Conference on Easter Sunday - we could relax and stay in one place all weekend. We had lots of fun spending time with family. Thanks everyone for a great time!
