Welcome to the world, puppies!

When I got home yesterday, Frank, Bjarki, Buffy and Faith were wandering about the farm, looking for Disa, who was nowhere to be found. It’s a good thing that she always comes up to greet me when she hears the truck. She came up, got a pet, turned around and went right back to her hiding spot, the place she’d decided to have her babies. It was way far under a shed, and she studiously ignored my demands that she come out. We had to dig away the snow, use mean demanding voices and poke at her with a stick to get her out, and then she ran right into the house and got into the whelping box. (The exposed nails under there! She’d drug all manners of crap into the nicely dug out nest, too.)

She labored on and off all night, but didn’t have any until today, despite my telling her that 11-1-11 was a cooler birthday. She had five gorgeous babies, no troubles at all. Two are black and white tri, one sort of looks that way but I think he’s going to be gray of some sort, and the other two are sable. I’m not sure of the sexes yet. I know there are two boys and one girl, but it was a bit hectic and she doesn’t like it when they fuss so I’m leaving them alone for a while. She’s stinking proud of herself, though. Such a good mama!

In Maggie news, she had a really rough night last night. She’s in a lot of pain, and tossed and turned, whimpered a lot all night. I did everything I could to get her to drink, but nothing doing. I tried broth, molasses in the water, a turkey baster, a syringe, begging, pleading, demanding. No, thanks. She turns her head away, won’t open her mouth. She’ll eat scrambled eggs and kibble if I wrap each piece in butter, but that’s it.

She had a better day, though, slept a lot while I was in town. I stopped at the vet on the way home and got the stuff to give her sub-cutaneous fluids. We didn’t get enough in her on our first try, but it’s really hard to restrain her because she has SO MANY injuries, especially around her neck, armpits, legs, flanks, etc. Poor girl. We’ll try again before we go to bed tonight.

I can’t wait to show her the puppies. She had so much fun with the last litter. Remember this?