Yesterday during labor and birth, I felt like Holly's birthing coach. She wanted me there and let me do anything I could to try to help her. After the seventh pup's arrival things finally calmed down. She even got a well-deserved, if short, nap. I set up my cot out in the shed with her and prepared to spend the night. During the evening her attitude towards me changed. She even gave me a low growl when I approached her and the pups. I still managed to extract one who crawled behind or underneath her, but she clearly would have preferred me to keep my distance. I spent the night out there anyway. I didn't get a lot of sleep but probably more than she did.
Her attitude towards me was the same this morning. I figured she wanted some alone time with her puppies and they seemed to be doing fine. I had a vet appointment in town with Maya anyway, so we left her alone.
Maya's appointment was fine. The growths that had been removed showed no signs of having returned at this point, which was good news. We did some blood work and she got a vaccine but it was a good and easy visit.
When I returned home I went out to check on Holly and now she hopped up and was happy to see me, a very different reaction but one that I was happy to see. Erika and company came over to weigh the puppies and mark them so we could identify the five blond ones who look pretty much identical. Holly was upset when I leashed her and shut her out of the shed, but she was still friendly, she just wanted back inside with her pups. I'm still not sure that dog has pooped or peed since she had those puppies Thursday afternoon.
Later in the afternoon she was back to preferring that I disappear and for the most part, I have. I'm sleeping in the house tonight and will just check in via surveillance cam and occasional visits. I hope we'll be back to friendly, welcoming Holly soon, but we will follow her lead.
The pups seem to be doing well. There are four females and three males. I'll try to get individual pics with their names tomorrow.
Maya was not thrilled to be going to the vet today, she never is.
But it was a quick, easy, and relatively painless visit.
You can see one tiny white foot of a puppy that is mostly under Holly in this pic.
This is the one, the only one, that got her coloring.
This pup climbed over the nipple zone.
The blue dot is a non-toxic paint that we used to identify the blond pups.
She didn't mind the visitors, or the marking of her puppies,
she just didn't like being separated from them.
I had thought I'd be on 24/7 puppy watch duty,
but she knows what she's doing and she's calling the shots.
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This made me laugh when I saw it on Facebook a while back.
This seems to be Holly's attitude towards me, at least for now.
I'll be around when she wants or needs me anyway.
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