A change of clothes later, and we were sitting around the whelping box in the dark of the living room, giving Luna massages and waiting for the appearance of our first baby.

And waiting

And waiting

And waiting.

It was getting near four hours from when her water had broken, and for Luna that’s not very normal! Her births have always been quick and easy, so what was going on here? We decided to help Luna along with a technique called “feathering” and when that still didn’t produce a puppy, we called her outside to see if walking and maybe using the bathroom would help. Well our midwifery worked! (Or, more likely, her body just finally decided it was time for birth.) Just a few minutes after we’d brought her outside, she started bearing down and we finally saw the start of our first puppy!

We darted back inside to grab the whelping box and by the time we made it back out, there was a little puppy on the dew covered grass, born at 4 in the morning. A little Blenheim lump with a perfectly round Queen’s Kiss whom we called Butters!

Now that the birth was going, it was ready to go smoothly! We brought Luna and Butters back into the warmth of the house and settled down to rest before the next pup. But it wasn’t even five minutes before Luna got that look again! We massaged her ears and whispered what a good girl she is and out slid another Blenheim boy: Twizzler!

Two pups out in the space of ten minutes! We love to see a birth go so smoothly! We let Butters and Twizzler nurse in the dark with their mama, but in just thirty minutes Luna started shifting around like she was getting ready to pop out the next puppy. So we took poor Butters and Twizzler to their separate puppy box so she could concentrate on her next baby. But she was in no mood to be separated from her two first babies! She crawled right into the too-small puppy box with them!

Well, that wasn’t going to work, the puppy box was much too small for puppies AND the mama, so we moved the puppies back to the whelping box and with her babies tucked back against her Luna popped out a third Blenheim boy- tinier than the rest but already gunning for those nippies! Before his placenta was even out and his umbilical cord was even cut, little Tic Tac had ahold of a nippie and a belly full of milk.

Three pups out and it was only nearing 5 AM. We knew there were more puppies in there, but Luna’s body said “let’s take a break!” And since it was safe to let her rest, we did. She dozed in the dark with three healthy puppies nursing away.

She napped for a good hour and then got up out of the box and went to the door, signaling that she needed to be outside. We followed her lead, threw on a fuzzy bathrobe and grabbed a towel to catch any puppies, and followed her out into the early morning air.

The sun was still sleeping but a street lamp lit the yard in a soft yellow glow. Luna paced around the yard, went to the bathroom, and then crouched again, bearing down. Yep! Another puppy born outside! We let her lick him til he squeaked and then grabbed him up with the towel before he got too cold on the wet grass. We rubbed him clean as Luna raced us up the front porch steps, and when we got inside we found we had a tricolor little boy this time!

Juliet had been sent to bed before Luna’s water even broke (although she kept coming back into the living room to check on Luna’s progress long after she was supposed to be asleep!) but our little red head with bed head came out of her room rubbing sleepy eyes at 5:30 AM because she heard the front door open and close when we let Luna out. She said it woke her up and she just HAD to come check on the puppies!

We showed her our four healthy boys and told her she got to name the newest addition- the little tricolor boy. She decided on “Hershey” and it was perfect! Hershey he was!

With Luna resting contentedly with her babies, and Juliet wide awake with excitement and us adults going on zero sleep, we let her watch over Luna with strict instructions to alert us if Luna started moving around while we rested our eyes on the couch. Well a few minutes later Luna herself got our attention by scratching at the door! Miss Too-Excited-To-Sleep Juliet had stretched out on the floor by the whelping box and fallen right asleep!

Well, it was okay, we had only been resting our eyes and not truly asleep so when Luna scratched at the door we jumped back into action and followed her out into the cool autumn morning once more. Luna did her business and then crouched again, another puppy on its way. We scooped the pup up in a towel and found we had a Blenheim GIRL this time! The only little sister to this brood of boys! Juliet sleepily murmured that her name was to be Bubblegum.

So we settled in as the sun started to peek its way up into the sky. Luna had birthed five healthy and beautiful babies overnight, and was ready to snuggle up with them and sleep the new day away! We made her a little snack just to make sure she didn’t get too hungry while she slept, and then we all bedded down, humans and animals alike, right there in the living room, listening to the sweet sound of healthy warm puppies nursing the morning away.

The first few weeks of Butter’s life was spent in the cozy warm whelping box. He nursed, he cuddled, he slept, and then he woke up and did it all over again.

As he grew more and more each day, little changes started happening. Like how his little eyesies finally started peeking! And then his little earsies started opening up! Luna could tell that these chanes had happened and she started interacting with her babies more. Now that they could see and hear her, they weren’t just little nursing-milk-and-poop-machines, they were individual little babies! She started licking them not just to keep them clean, but to show them love. Butters suddenly realized that the furry warmth that made such delicious milkies was actually his Mama. He stared at her with his newly opened eyes, he listened to her with his newly opened ears. He loved his Mama.

As he grew, he started discovering that he could move! Butters scootched himself around the whelping box- always looking for that beautiful Mama-Milkies and her warmth. Eventually that scootching turned to steps, and before we knew it, Butters and his brothers and sister were running all around their play pen!

As soon as they were strong enough we brought all the puppies out into the Garden where they learned how to run through the grass, and lay in the sun. On the porch they learned how to climb stairs and survey their Kingdom. They wrestled with each other all day long, pretending to be VERY ferocious beasts. But then when they were tired they’d all collapse into a puppy pile in the warmest sun beam and cuddle up like the gentle babies they really were.

Butters was the oldest of Luna’s litter and he earned that place by also being the BIGGEST pup of the litter! He was even bigger than his cousins from Everest’s Litter who had been born a whole week before him! We called him our little Butterball ‘cause he was so cute and fat.

When he was 9 weeks old, and had been trained and groomed and snuggled as much as a 9 week old can be, he went to his new home.

Butters is now Ollie B. (B for Butters!) and lives with a family who loves everything about him- including all his extra chunkiness! He’s really blossomed under their care and undivided attention and he’s a confident, playful pup. We love getting updates about him and his ever-growing size, haha!

Swipe through for a slideshow of what Butters…I mean, Ollie B…’s life is like now!