Oops, they did it again...

Yes, that's right! Puppies....again!

When Myrtle was gaining weight even though we had kept the dogs apart during her heat, we took her to the vet to make sure she was OK. After a fairly thorough check-up, the vet determined that it was probably a "false pregnancy" and that some dogs' hormones just kick in and prepare their bodies for puppies. Since Myrtle was such a good momma dog, we figured she just really wanted to have puppies again and was tricking her body into it.

Then when I FELT and SAW the little ones moving on Saturday night, I called Ben (he

was in Idaho at the time) and he was as shocked as me. So the next day I got the

middle-sized crate back out of the laundry room and we kept Myrtle separated from the boys.

After two nights of random barking in our bedroom, we moved Myrtle's crate

back out to the dining room last night. When she started barking again,

we moved her crate in the living room next to the other one.

That seemed to calm her down and we all went to sleep.

However, we were awakened at 4:45 a.m. to nonstop barking and Ben came out to see

what was going on. I listened from the bedroom and came out when I heard

a little squeak! We turned the lights on and discovered six little totally clean,

precious Boston Terrier puppies next to Myrtle in the crate. She had taken time

to clean EVERYTHING up and then she proudly made her official announcement.

With four boys and two girls, they are quite the sight, and seem to be doing well,

thankfully. One of the girls is about half the size of all the others and we've had to try supplementing her food with milk replacer. She also has a little wound on her belly

that we will get checked out at the vet's office first thing in the morning.

She is so tiny, but hanging in there and trying to make it work with four big brothers

and a big sister!

I'll be heading to Arkansas tomorrow for the craft fair weekend, so Ben will be on patrol

until Saturday morning. I will miss them over the next few days, but I'm just glad

that I was here when they were born (even if we were all asleep!)