Got a puppy and ended up with puppies!!!

Hi, I'm Pete - Around a year ago my wife and I selected a timid little mongrel pup (OK hardly a puppy at 2 years old) to rehome from our local RSPCA centre in Merseyside, UK. After a short wait and a home visit from a member of RSPCA staff we were given permission to take our new dog home. We called her Ella.

In Early February 2007 we collected her from the RSPCA centre to take her home, she looked a little larger than the first time we saw her, but hey...maybe she'd been feeding better since being taken off the streets, right?

We had noticed her nipples looked a little large but the guys at the RSPCA said they thought she had birthed a litter prior to being rescued. After being with us at home for a week we noticed she had grown even bigger and took her to the local vet where a nurse checked her out and said she couldn't find any signs of pups and while she was 99% sure she would be able to tell if the bitch was pregnant (given she would need to be at least 6 weeks gone - the time since Ella was rescued from the streets) only an ultrasound would confirm which would cost more.

Well if the RSPCA couldn't tell she was pregnant and neither could a vet nurse then who were we to disagree - maybe she was just putting a bit of weight on after all, now that she was being fed properly.

On returning home I checked the feed amounts and realised that I had been feeding her the daily feed twice a day - that would explain the weight gain then! We cut the feed back to the correct measure and weighted for the size reduction.

During the next seven days Ella was clearly beginning to relax and the slight bulge she had toward the back end of her rib cage dropped, she now had an underbelly like a small sack of potatoes and her boobs began to inflate to the size of oranges, now there was little doubt in our minds this was indeed a pregnant dog!!!

From the ultrasound the vet could make out two definite heart beats and spines, 'possibly two, four, six or even eight pups' we were told. We didn't know what to do, the rescue centre offered to take her back in until the pups were eight weeks old. Putting Ella back in that cold brick cell seemed like a terrible idea and besides we had all bonded.

We knew it would only be a week or two until the new arrivals and began to gather as much information as possible about birthing pups and weaning the litter.