Birthing puppies for the first time.

As birthing time approached we gathered all of the recommended materials and as much information as possible so that we could help our new friend as much as possible.

By the time of the birthing we had gathered:

• A large pile of clean old towels and teatowels.
• A bottle of antiseptic fluid.
• A pair of blunt paper scissors.
• Lots of newspapers.
• Hot water bottles.
• A small bag of white flour.
• A bottle of children's vitamins.
• Cows Milk
• Two baby feeding bottles.
• A small bottle of corn oil.
• Some old blankets and sheets.

In addition I had knocked together a pen around 2 square metres in area and 1 metre high from some wood and wire mesh bought from a diy store.

While there was a certain element of panic about the whole process - after all we had no experience of this sort of thing - I had read a reimder that bitches obviously birth in the wild, they generally know what to do instinctively and interfering as little as possible is the general aim because spooking the bitch would likely be the biggest cause of complications and problems.

We grew a little concerned as the expected nesting behaviour was intermittent over several days and occurred all over the house, not just in the 'nest' we had lovingly prepared. The poor girl was so big now she could barely move and her breasts were scraping against everything, we wished for her sake she would pop the little bundles of trouble out as soon as possible...then one morning around 1.30am the waters broke...no major flood, around a cup full of fluid, we gently encouraged Ella into her nesting box and she lay down and began contractions.

We watched in awe as after an hour or two the first pup appeared, wrapped in a sac like a really thin plastic bag. Ella was struggling to reach the pup as it emerged as she was so big so with sterile hands I gave a little help and encouraged her to attend on the new pup, she tore the sac with her teeth and gave the pups head a good licking until it splurged out the cutest of mini puppy yelps.

Incredible, but Ella hadn't cut the umbilical and lay back down resting, so it was down to me. I knew the best way was to sever the cord around 1/2 inch from the pup's belly and with a crushing cut rather than a clean slice as this prevents undue bleeding and helps seal the cord from infection.

With my wife acting as nurse we used the sterilised paper scissors and crush-cut the umbilical. There was barely any blood and after a quick dip of the cord in antiseptic solution we placed her nearer to mum who gave her another good licking, and before long the new pup was suckling at one of mum's eleven nipples.

...and so it went on with gaps between pups emerging from 15 minutes up to just over two hours. One or two more needed a little help with the umbilical cord but as mum got lighter she found it easier to reach and attend to her pups.

By 9.30am I was exhausted and had blood smeared to the elbows but with eight new little pups the size of gerbils and no sign of any more I went for a wash and then to bed leaving my good wife to keep an eye on things. When I got up two hours later the eight had turned into eleven - one for each nipple!!! Craxy, we rehomed one dog just weeks earlier and now had 12 in the house.

Mum looked so thin we were very worried, we let her out in the garden to have a pee and then encouraged her to eat a little.

Once back in her bed we left mum and her new pups alone, just checking every now and then to make sure all the pups were still showing good signs of life and were feeding OK. Once the first day had passed and all pups were still looking well, alert and feeding we began to relax a little more. We named the pups for ID purposes over the coming weeks and then we weighed the pups one by one while mum was on a toilet break.