Woo hoo! The pups have finally arrived! Last night, Tilly our black labrador, gave birth to TEN bouncing black labrador puppies.

I had been closely monitoring her for the last week, as she had been showing the intial signs of labour for a couple of days prior to the event.

There were several close encounters with hedges as Tilly tried to dive under every available hedge and try to dig a hole! On the penultimate day, she was tossing her bedding around and acting in a very restless manner.

Finally, just after we had all gone to bed last night, I heard an unusual yelp, and running down the stairs was confronted with Tilly standing in her whelping box, with a rather surprised look on her face - looking down at a rather indignant looking pup!  This one, was swiftly followed by four others, and then there was a longer break between the next two, followed by an even longer break until the final three….

My husband had gone to bed after no 7 pup, as we were convinced that there were no more – how wrong we were!  Thankfully, I felt fully prepared as I had read my Book of the Bitch "bible" and knew how to deal with the pups as they arrived.  I think I actually managed to save two pups one of which wasn't breathing when it came out of the sac, and the other which Tilly didn't even realise she had given birth to!!!

Anyhow, mother and pups are all doing fine, and we are now looking at what kind of whelping pen we should buy, now that we know how many pups we have.

During all of the excitement last night, I don't even know how many boys and girls we have. That's the next job, to identify the sex of each pup!  Summer holidays have never been so much fun!!!