Her First Litter ~ Chapter 3

Poor Chrissy struggled through the next 5 days and delivered right on schedule. She cried with the birth of the first pup, but was better for the rest. Anywhere from 5 to 45 minutes passed between the births of each puppy until every single one was here safe and nursing. I was right. Chrissy was a very attentive Mommy to every single puppy.

Three days later we moved them out of the whelping area, which was hard for me to clean, and into a play pen I had purchased at a garage sale. The play pen offered a large safe place for the puppies and Chrissy, a plastic mat that was easy to clean and when the side was down, Chrissy could come and go as she pleased but the puppies were totally contained until they were about 3 weeks old.

I went back to work. Every day I was anxious to get home to visit with my new extended 4 legged family. About a week after the birth, I came home and found the playpen covered with stuffed animals. I stood completely still for a few moments as I tried to figure out what I was looking at. At that very second Chrissy was coming around the corner with another stuffed animal in her mouth that she had collected from Joy's room.

"Chrissy.... " I looked at her with a frown on my face. "What are you doing?"

She immediately dropped the toy and started for the play pen. She jumped over the lowered arm and started rooting her way towards her puppies. There must have been 20 stuffed animals in that play pen all burying her babies. I started to take them out one by one. In doing so I realized that she had retrieved these toys from every corner of our home including both of my daughters rooms as well as mine too!

"Chrissy, you bad girl!" I scolded her. "This is MINE!" as I reached down to grab my mink teddy bear that usually resides atop my bed. She lowered her head and put her ears back acknowledging she was in trouble.

to be continued..