PUPPY LOVE

As I mentioned in my last post, I kept dogs for most of my life. Back in the early 1980's, I had a golden cocker spaniel called 'Crumpet'. That's her on the right of the picture. She was such a lovely good-natured dog that I thought it would be a good idea to let her have a litter of puppies.

Accordingly, I took her to a kennels who had a pedigree stud dog for hire who proceeded to 'service' Crumpet. This must have been one of the most expensive 'quickies' in history! Well the time came when she was close to giving birth and I was nervously keeping a close eye on her when one night (why is it always night?) she started to produce.

Nature pretty much took over and after a while, the first puppy popped out. For those of you who don't know, puppies are delivered into this world looking for all the world like sausages! They each emerge in their own little translucent bag and while she is waiting for the next pup to emerge, the mother busily licks the newborn one free from its bag so it can start breathing. She then eats the bag itself which nourishes her in readiness for the feeding to come.

Out they came, 1,2,3,4,5,6. All went well until the last. By now, Crumpet was exhausted and wanted nothing but sleep. So there was number 6, twitching in its membrane sac about to suffocate. Quickly but carefully I helped the pup out of its bag and it started to breathe.

So there they were. Six new born puppies and as you can see they were absolutely beautiful! So much so that we sold only 5 of them, keeping one back who we named Muffin.