You can always spot Kit Kat by looking for the big white stripe!
Little Twix has less white of a stripe than Kit Kat. Thank goodness- or we’d have no way to tell them apart!
Everest Rain labored through Friday night into early Saturday morning, giving birth to FIVE gorgeous puppies.
It was dark in the house Friday night around 11 PM. It was time for bed, but Everest was feeling restless. We'd been checking her temperature and seen the drop that indicated labor was going to happen in the next 24 hours, so we knew tonight was the night! We got all our supplies and set up the room, keeping it dark and calm and quiet with only a few nightlights lit so we could keep track of her progress.
Everest had her nice clean whelping box, and her crate that she thinks of as her little den- either of which we were okay with her giving birth in. (She ended up using both!) Us humans camped out with pillows and blankets on the living room floor, taking turns keeping watch over her through the early parts of her labor and giving her massages to help her relax. Long, quiet minutes passed, until finally at 12:30 AM her water broke! Another hour passed and then...
Out came Peanut, a little blenheim male. He was the first puppy, so Everest didn't know what was happening to her! She dropped him and ran out of the whelping box to hide in the closet. Us humans took over, one of us cleaning up Peanut and making sure he could breathe and was warm, and one of us going to comfort Everest.
With a few pats and ear scratches, and lots of murmurs of "You are my baby. You have always been my baby and you will always be my baby and you are the best baby in the world." Everest started feeling better, and came out of the closet to meet her firstborn. She sniffed him, licked him, and curled around him to keep him warm. He started nursing immediately!
Well, they had a nice cuddle for a while, but then the next baby was ready to come out. Everest started moving around the whelping box, so us humans moved Peanut to a special little box we set up especially to keep the puppies warm and safe while the mamas work through their labors. He curled up next to a hot water bottle (even tried to nurse it at first!), and Everest paced for a few minutes.
We used a little flashlight to get a good look at her progress, and there we saw a little puppy head coming on out! A ruby this time! Now that Everest knew what was going on, she didn't panic. Her instincts took over and she helped the baby out, and cleaned them up. Once the puppy was clean, we took a peek, and it was a little girl with a white blaze- the spitting image of Everest when she was born! We named her Kit Kat.
Kit Kat and Everest had a snuggle to themselves for a few minutes, and then the next baby said "let me out!" so we introduced Kit Kat to her big brother Peanut and let them stay warm and safe by the hot water bottle.
The next puppy, another ruby little girl named Twix, slid out no problem, and Everest licked her clean, but her placenta was still inside and she was still attached!! We humans wanted to intervene as little as possible, so we said, "Okay, let's see if she can work it out on her own before we do anything."
Well, it soon became obvious that the reason the placenta had gotten stuck was because ANOTHER PUPPY was impatiently making their way out right then!
Butterscotch, a tiny blenheim little girl, demanded to be birthed immediately, so now we had TWO puppies dangling out of Everest, and two placentas inside! Thankfully, no one was in danger at that very moment so we just massaged Everest to help her relax, and after a few minutes, both placentas slid on out and we had two free little puppies.
So, we thought Everest was just about done. We had four perfect little puppies and by this time it was 4:30 in the morning! We were getting tired, and Everest must have been exhausted. But we felt her tummy very gently, and felt the little kick and squirm of one more puppy in there. No one could rest til the job was done, so we gave Everest a little snack to keep her energy up, a good drink of water, and then we helped her stand to get the last puppy out. Within just a few minutes, we saw Everest getting ready to bear down. Out came our last little blenheim puppy- Macaroon!
The hard part was over and we had a lovely little family of five puppies: Peanut- our blenheim big brother, Kit Kat and Twix- the ruby twins, Butterscotch- our impatient littlest blenheim girl who wiggled her way out early, and Macaroon- our gentle blenheim girl who waited her turn.
Now that all the puppies were out, we cleaned Everest up and let her rest cuddled close to her precious babies. We all slept late until Saturday afternoon and then we made Everest a big congratulations breakfast of all her favorite foods and she happily gobbled up every last bit! She earned it after all that hard work!
The first few weeks of the pups’ lives were spent in the cozy warm whelping box. They nursed, they cuddled, they slept, and then they woke up and did it all over again. Somehow the twins, Kit Kat and Twix, always wound up together. Like they knew they belonged together!
As they grew more and more each day, little changes started happening. Like how their little eyesies finally started peeking! Twix was one of the first to peek her eyes open, and Kit Kat followed soon after that. After their eyes and ears opened, Everest started interacting with them 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. The pups suddenly realized that the furry warmth that made such delicious milkies was actually their Mama. They stared at her with their newly opened eyes, they listened to her with their newly opened ears. They loved her.
When they were four weeks old, they finally started tentatively scooting around the whelping box. Sometimes they peered over the edge at the world around them, and we could see that they wanted to explore. So we moved them to The Library- where they met their cousins, and a bigger little pen where they could stretch their legs.
As they grew stronger and sturdier, they played more and more! In the Garden 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.
And all the while, the little ruby twins stayed side by side. Of course, Twix loved to wrestle with Butterscotch the most. And Kit Kat could generally be found tugging on Macaroon’s or Bubblegum’s ears. But come snuggle time- you could bet the twins would be together!
When they were 10 weeks old, and had been trained and groomed and snuggled as much as a 10 week old can be, they went to their new home…Together!
The twins live on a huge plot of land in Oklahoma now- all the space they could ever want to run and wrestle and play. Their two humans tell us that Twix (who now goes by Robyn) is quite the Daddy’s Girl, and Kit Kat (Rosie) is a Mama’s Girl.
There’s a fun pond on the property that the twins have investigated, and their favorite time is Saturday morning- when they get all the snuggles they could ever want from Mama and Daddy.
We’re so glad the twins got to stick together!
Swipe through the slideshow to see what the Twins’ life is like now:
