Penny's puppies to Mats
Page 1: Pregnancy and birth

Penny (Cymry Penny Wise Goldmali, left) was mated to Mats (Mats Van De Vaardekenshoeve at Goldmali IMP BEL, right)
Our two very best dogs as far as temperament goes, both with show AND working lines behind them.

Penny was scanned after 4 weeks, and found to be carrying more than 10 pups.

5 weeks pregnant

6 weeks pregnant

6 weeks and 1 day pregnant

6 ½ weeks pregnant

7 weeks pregnant

 51 days pregnant

55 days pregnant

8 weeks pregnant.
When I took this photo I said I thought it would be the last as Penny was so big and so uncomfortable, hardly able to move, that it was extremely unlikely she would go full term.

Sure enough, Penny went into labour the very next day, on day 57.
The first pup, a bitch, was born at 4.50 pm. (She was later given the pink collar.)



It took a long time for the second pup to be born. Penny's contractions more or less stopped. We called the emergency vet who told me to do an internal examination and feel for a pup. Indeed there was a pup in the birth canal, and just as I felt it, Penny pushed, her waters broke and moments  later the puppy was born. A dog, born at 7.34 pm. (Black collar.) The vet said things should hopefully speed up now.


However, everything slowed down again, and at 10 pm we called the vet back who suggested we come in. So we left Benjamin in charge of the dogs and set off in the van with Penny and the two pups. At 10.40 pm we had to stop quickly as a pup was being born. A bitch. (I kept thinking it was a shame it wasn't a dog, as I could have called him King of the Road! This being the K litter, and all my pups being named after songs.) She was later given the red collar.

At the vet's Penny was examined, given a calcium injection straight into a vein, and then an oxytocin injection too, to hopefully speed things up. Penny was good as gold. The vet said there didn't seem to be anything wrong, just a very slow labour, probably due to the fact that there were so many puppies.

We arrived back home and at one minute past midnight on Tuesday the 7th of April (daddy Mats' birthday!), the fourth pup was born, a dog. Blue collar.

Penny with 3 pups. Bandaged leg after the injection.

3 pups

Number four (far right) has arrived

At 2.15 am everyone except Penny and myself had gone to bed, and the fifth pup was born. A bitch, who later got the purple collar.




At 3 am the sixth pup was born, but sadly she was dead at birth.

4.20 am a dog pup arrived, so now there were 6 puppies. He later got the beige collar.

Seventh pup


5.20 am another bitch pup arrived. She later got the pale green collar.



7 live pups now


8 am another bitch pup born. She later got the dark green collar.

8.50 am another bitch pup, white collar.

9 pups

The sun came out and it was truly morning

10.20 am and Judith arrived 30 seconds too late to watch another bitch pup being born. Yellow collar.

10 live pups and we thought Penny had finished (after all, she'd had 11) so we gave the new family clean bedding. John got ready for work and was giving Benjamin a lift home.

Messy Penny but nice clean pups, all ten of them

Then at 12.40 pm another bitch pup arrived. She was born tail first, was rather stuck, the sack had broken and it took quite a while to bring her round -but eventually she started breathing properly. Brown collar. And Judith got to see the birth.

11 puppies

Then finally at 2.50 pm a final dog pup arrived. Orange collar. All in all the birth had taken 22 hours and the puppies actually have two different birthdays. (But as we cannot register more than one birth date, we will have to go by the majority and choose Tuesday the 7th as the birthday for all.)


12 puppies



ID collars fitted


I finally got to bed at 11 pm that night...

NEXT: First week