Stassi and her puppies

Stassi had her first puppies when she was about two years old. I think, she could not understand what is happend when they began to born. At 11o'clock we wanted to go shopping but I understood that we have a great day today, and we remained at home. When I come into the pen, she was just sitting on her first puppy. 40 kg of Stassi on that little hand-long body. They say, animals know instinctively what to do  in such cases. It was not about Stassi. I don't know, maybe she was too spoilt by us and by her Imir, male, but she did not know to do anything herself.



I passed all the day near her. The deliveries repeated every hour or two till the night when we decided, the last puppy is just born. But we found other 2 when we came in the morning. All together, dead and alive, they were 13. Among 7 alive puppies only 3 were males.



Summer was too hot that year and we took the family in the room that was relatively fresh. When we had to go out we left them in the pen. Once we turned home and wanted to take them in the house. We went in the pen and found a great hole Stassi dug under the stones of the kennel. Her puppies were practically buried there. She found the most fresh place for them.



Imir was not allowed to come near the puppies until they were so little. And he seemed to be very afraid of Stassi in this period. Even when I wanted to make a photo with all them, I had to drug him till the blanket where Stassi nursed the puppies.



That poor blanket! We have stone floor in that room and that old blanket was necessary to protect those little creatures. But... It was always dirty. And it was difficult to clean it very well. When the puppies became big enough, I washed it as good as I could and put it in the shed where it remained for some years.



One day I had to take it from the shed and put it on the same place where it was when Stassi had her puppies. After a while she entered the room, saw the blanket, came to it, snuff around and ...began to cry. Than she laid at the blanket so as she did with her puppies and remained there for some time. She had dreaming expression.



I cryed looking at her.