The following pictures were all taken Thursday and Friday, September 6-7, 2001:
Chow time |
What have I done... |
Time for a nap |
Life's a beach but we're just in a little wading pool |
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OK, so I'm irresitable |
I'm really a good mother... but I'm pooped |
Eat, sleep, eat, sleep ... what else is there? Oh yeah! Poop! |
I said I'm tired, and you already know that I'm so cute that it hurts. Now get that camera outta my face! |
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I'm gonna make a break for it any minute now |
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Note: this is written by me, Bill Austin, proud possession of Merlin and Sarah. I am male and this is written from a MALE viewpoint. If any of you ladies who happen to read this are offended by my "casual" approach to the births described below, you are welcome to think nasty thoughts about ... no, I take that back. You are welcome to plan to hurl invectives at... no, not that one either. OK, you are welcome to notice that men and women have different views on labor pains. Or as Merlin said elsewhere, "It was no trouble at all and he had a great time." Ditto for me.
Cathy acted as midwife for the deliveries and has earned the much-coveted medal "First Order of Puppy Delivery" (with silver clusters, no less) for her heroic efforts.
On Wednesday (September 5, 2001) Sarah acted strangely. Strangely for Sarah, that is. (Aside: Note that an Airedale who doesn't act strange is probably up to something.)
She refused to eat or drink for most of the day, although at hooman dinner time, she did condescend to eat an entire 3/4 pounds of well-cooked hamburger patties... but she refused ice cream and cookies, and that is completely unheard of.
And about 6:00 PM, she started panting, looking uncomfortable, and acting nervous. But at bedtime (or around 11:00) we were ready to go to bed, and she came up with us as usual, jumped up on the bed, settled down for the night, and gave us the "what-are-standing-there-looking-at-me-for??-turn-the-lights-off-so-we-can-go-to-sleep" look, and we all retired for the evening. Or so we thought.
At 3:00 am on Thursday, Cathy was awakened by Sarah, whose shaking from the labor pains was enough to wake the dead. Naturally (being male) I slept through these completely. At this point, Cathy turned on the lights, grabbed her robe, and started to head for the basement LDR (labor-delivery-room) to help Sarah bring those puppies into the world. For some reason, Cathy saw fit to wake me up, too, and inquired as to whether I would enjoy coming down to help with the delivery of the puppies.
Naturally, being the chivalrous guy I am, I bravely declined on the basis that (a) my presence there would make the moment less special for her, and that (b) one of us needed to get a good night's sleep in case we had to drive to the animal emergency room or some such. After telling her "call me if you need me," I went back to sleep. Sigh. Somebody had to do it.
But Cathy took Sarah down to the LDR room, and at 3:35am, the first little guy (a male whom Nicholas has nicknamed "Bear") started to appear. He got halfway out, and then the contraction stopped, so he yawned and licked his lips. And on the next contraction, out he came. He squeaked immediately, and Cathy carefully cut the umbilical cord, dried him off, and gave him back to Sarah to examine. He was thoroughly licked all over (squeaking quite a bit at the time), he was soon joined at 4:10 by his first sister.
To make it a long narative a lot shorter, here are all the deliveries:
First puppy: male, 3:35 AM. 12 ounces, 8" long.
Cathy and I had previously decided that she would take the day off to stay with the puppies on the first day and that we would alternate after that, but I came home very early so that she could get some more sleep. And I was up far into the night with Sarah and her new babies, marveling at these tiny, brand new, baby Airedales
On Friday it was my turn -- and Cathy got to take pictures of the puppies to her office while I stayed home on puppy-watch
But my presence was only as a figurehead. Many folks have told or warned both Cathy and me that ADT's (Airedale Terriers) are bad mothers, but I have to say in no uncertain terms that -- in Sarah's case at any rate -- this is grossly untrue. Now I grew up with a kennel at my house, and I am used to mothers with new litters of puppies, and Sarah is an excellent mother. She immediately cleaned up every puppy who pooped or tinkled and made sure that everybody was feeding well (and still continues to do so). She needed no help from me -- but it was a lot of fun to watch the puppies, to pet them, and to smell puppy breath again.
Saturday, we took Sarah and her entire litter to the vet and to have them all checked out and to have their tails docked and their dew-claws removed. For those of you who do not know, ADT's actually are born with "thumbs" and full-length tails. But from our experience with Sarah (whose "thumbs" are intact), it is probably a wise custom to have those front dew-claws removed, as they can catch in lots of human-beloved things such as looped-pile carpeting, lace curtains, open-weave bedspreads and many other "civilize" niceties. I don't really agree with the tail docking, but until everyone else stops doing it, people looking at Sarah's babies would probably not understand why their tails weren't docked, too.
So at this point, we had a litter of nine healthy, active, and extremely active puppies. As you can see above, if they were any cuter, they might be illegal.
Comments or questions? Please write me at waustin@speakeasy.net
