Pyrenee Puppies!

As I said in my last post, we have been watching Princess on our surveillance camera.  She wasn't eating and was sleeping most of Christmas day.  But every once in a while she would stretch out and kick her legs like she was having contractions.  When we would take her out to go to the bathroom and put her in with Captain, she would head straight for the dog house and hunker down.  She did not want to be bothered by playful Captain.  So we would bring her back to her whelping box.
The day after Christmas we were all in the kitchen, and we could see on the camera that Princess was very restless.  She was whining and pacing back and forth.  Then she would sit in her whelping box for a couple seconds and get up again.  Up and down and back and forth she went.  As Emily and I watched we knew it was getting close, but we were eating at the time, so we weren't paying super close attention.

Then a few minutes later, we glanced at the screen.  "Is that...?", Emily said.  Princess was licking something in her box.  "It's a puppy!!!", I shouted.  The whole family went running out the door and into the garage where her whelping box is located.
 
It was 11:21am when the first puppy was born.  At 11:43am number two was born.  By 12:38pm she had had five puppies.  We were ecstatic!   Five puppies!  WOW!  Then by 1:34pm she had had seven...SEVEN!  How many more could she have?  At 2:16pm she had number eight!  Number nine arrived at 3:13pm and number ten at 4:14pm.  We were in shock!  I guess I felt half excited and half...well, concerned.  I thought to myself, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" :)
 
At 4:30pm Princess had number eleven and that was the last puppy.  All day long I was texting my friend who raises another breed of dogs.  She has been a great resource for us.  By puppy number eleven, she texted and said, "Yep, you guys are going to have your work cut out for you!"  I called her.  "What exactly do you mean by that?" I asked.  And she said, "Do you know how much poop you are going to have to clean up?"  WOW!  I had never thought of that! :)  Eleven dogs pooping and peeing is a whole lot of mess!!  Well,  here we go...  :)



The first puppy



Princess in her box with puppy number two.



There's eleven there!!  Can you find them all?



Isn't he cute?

Princess had five boys and six girls.  Eleven lucky people will get to take one home in about eight weeks. :)