Wow, what a night, and by night I mean ALL NIGHT.  Yesterday at about 6pm (honestly, I have lost track of time) Jazz let me know the babies were coming and coming now.  This seems to be her style.  Not much nesting, no fuss, and then BAM!  I had a feeling she would do this to me.  You see, Keith’s only call day for the ENTIRE month was last night.  I kid you not.  Jazz whelped her first litter when Keith was on call as well.  Once is just bad timing, twice is a tradition.  At least the kids were home from school.  Jazz whelped 5 days earlier with her first litter, so I was banking on this weekend.  If there is one thing I will say for Jazz, it is that she is extremely consistent.  Let us count the ways, shall we?

1.  Whelp on Keith’s call night.  (CHECK)
2. Whelp 13 puppies.  (CHECK)
3. Have 7 girls and 6 boys (CHECK)

We do have some differences.  First, all the babies are alive, though I do have 2 tiny 4 oz babies I will be watching closely.  I have chosen not to dock tails, so those little dolls will stand a better chance at life.  I have already started supplementing the smaller ones and plan to give them a few good meals a day.  My goal is to not bottle feed them full time, but keep them gaining and still nursing for both the benefits and to cause Jazz to produce the correct amount of milk.  The more the pups nurse, the more milk she will produce.

I’m extremely pleased with the babies.  They all look healthy with no cleft pallets, extra or unidentified parts.  One pup had a tiny piece of poop under his arm pit that looked like a skin tag at 4AM… but I figured it out and cleaned the little guy up.

Keith made it home just in time to take the kids to school.  For that I am thankful.  I wasn’t sure if she was finished whelping at 7am and I really didn’t want to leave her alone for even the 5 minutes it takes to get the kids to school.  After he made it back home and a full exam of Jazz was done, I took her outside to potty while he stripped the whelping box.  The babies are settled in and doing great.  Jazz is so much more relaxed with this litter than her first.  She was calm about the entire event, even ok with me removing the pups to a box between births.  Thankfully Keith was able to get about 4 hours of sleep last night while on call.  I, obviously didn’t get a wink, so I crashed out from 8AM until noon.  Now Keith is sleeping a bit before the kids get home and the house gets loud.  This is a 4 day weekend for him, so we should be able to keep a 24 hour a day watch, while still keeping our sanity.

So there we are, the happy breeders of 13 beautiful solid black pups.  I’m sure some of these guys will be blue and maybe a few silvers, but right now they are simply a sea of dark squiggling sweetness.  I won’t pick out puppy names until the kids get home.  They would never forgive me.  Watch for updates, photos, and emails over the week.  I need to get some rest and locate my camera gear after the move.  I’m going to need to dig to find lights and my backdrop!

~Becky