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 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.

After his two other siblings were born, our little middle man spent his days all warm and cozy in the whelping box. He nursed, he pooped, he slept. He was just a little lump!