Friday afternoon (3.5.10) she seemed off, and I had a feeling it would happen that night. I checked on her around 9p, and no puppies. She was shivering though, despite a very comfortable heated garage. Before we headed to bed, I went to the garage to check on her one last time. She whined a bit when I poked my head out, and then I saw two little heads and heard squeaking! PUPPIES!!! I hurriedly called for John, and out we went to check out our new little additions. This was around 10:45p. We figure she started delivering @ 9:30p. Around 11:15p she delivered #3. It was AMAZING! I haven't seen puppies born since I was a child, and I barely remember that.
I was truly in awe watching the miracle of life, seeing the pup take its first breath, and watching Jill's instincts kick in and take care of business. #4 pup came quickly, maybe 15 minutes later, as she hadn't had time to fully take care of #3. Then we had a little wait for #5, a girl who was a little smaller than the previous pups. She was also born breech! John thought that might be it, but I told him I could feel another one and so we waited. And waited. And waited some more. Finally, she began to push and delivered #6......and #7!!!!!!! TWINS! If we hadn't seen it with our own eyes we would have never known. One of the twins is a girl and was definitely the smaller of the two. I was scared for a few minutes but she came around fine. We breathed sighs of relief - including Jill! Jill began to relax and calm down and let the pups nurse. We thought, that's it! We were both wrong! I had guessed 6 pups and John had guessed 5.
It was around 2a by this point. We went inside to ready for bed, and John told me he wanted to check on her one last time before we turned in. He came back in and said, "Well, I guess we missed #8 being born!" I thought he was joking! But no, she had delivered the final pup while we were inside. Grand total: 5 boys and 3 girls. We set the alarm for 4a and I got up to check on her then (and make sure no more had been born, haha).
Saturday morning came way too early, and the kids were of course excited when we told them Jill had her puppies the night before. At first Jill was nervous with the kids, but by Sunday she was relaxed and even let us pick one up without freaking out.
