Iris Comes of Age
By Brother
Luke
I know the sound when my dogs may
be engaged in a little personal hygiene in my room. But Monday morning at 6:30
AM this was a little more than the usual cleaning activity. So, I turned the
light on and looked over the side of my bed, and there was Iris with her first
puppy! She was perfectly calm, looking at me as if to say, “I’ve got it all
under control, sleepyhead.” I’m not going to mention any names, but I have had
other bitches in my room who have had their first puppy in my room, and calm
would not be the word to describe their demeanor!
So, Iris was busy cleaning up while
I grabbed a towel and began to rub the puppy to get it to make its first
statement about its new life. Mother had cleaned up the placenta and the sac,
so we were in good shape. I needed to dress and then get Mom and pup
downstairs. In the mud room, where we have our dog crates and coats, I placed
the puppy on top of a crate, put on my coat, picked up the pup and towel, held
the door open with my foot, and called Iris out. We headed for the kennel.
Well, not exactly. Iris had in mind
to have her litter under one of our bushes, so I had to keep calling her while
carrying the pup and trying to make haste in the rain. Iris gave up on the
bush, then checked out the bench next to the church. No go there, so she headed
for the large ditch next to the road behind the church. All this while I was trying
to coax her to follow me and the pup. She climbed out of that ditch but headed
straight over to the ditch next to the kennel driveway. No more coaxing was
going to work. The second puppy appeared in the ditch. So I had one pup in my
hand, the second one coming out of Iris, with the sac and placenta all intact.
I didn’t want to pull it off and cause a problem, so I scooped up the second
pup with placenta, held it together with the first, and dashed over to the
kennel door, calling Iris to follow. Holding the two pups and trying to turn
the door knob was a juggling act, but we got it open.
Once inside, we entered the first
whelping room, which was already set up for her. I put the puppies in the
whelping pool and scurried into the main workroom of the kennel to get our
rolling cart, which has the scale, ric-rac, and other equipment for the
whelping process. Rolled it into the whelping room and set to work cleaning the
pups and weighing them, putting on their ric-rac “collars,” and noting all this
on our whelping chart. Then the pups went into the pool with Mom. One boy and
one girl. Whew!
Who was calm and who was a bit
haggard? I usually open the kennel at this time and feed the pups and dogs who
are there. One of our girls made a mess, so out she went, and I did a quick
cleanup and then fed the pups and adult dogs. Soon our kennel assistant, Dave,
arrived and he took over the usual morning cleaning chores.
The whelping process settled down,
and Iris proceeded to have her next four puppies at approximately half-hour
intervals. She was done in 3 hours. Three boys and three girls. Oh yes, and
while this was going on, Julia arrived with Justice, and Dave helped with a
breeding of Hannah and Justice.
Surprise! We only thought she was
done having puppies on Monday. Tuesday morning as Dave began to gather up the
puppies so he could clean the whelping pool, he counted not six but seven
puppies. He kept counting and recounting, since he couldn’t believe that she’d
actually had seven. He paged me in the monastery, and I came over. Indeed, we
discovered that Iris actually had another little girl tucked away inside. And that puppy was already born, cleaned up,
and nursing furiously along with all the others. I weighed her, gave her a ric-rac
collar, and put her back with Mom.
So, my little Iris indeed showed us
that she had come of age. She had that seventh puppy while I was sleeping Monday
night or sometime before the kennel was opened on Tuesday morning. It was so
natural that we didn’t even notice. Another reminder from nature about who is
really in charge!
