Introducing Zoe's Reindeer Games

Cupid - Female

Born December 18, 2011 at 3:08 a.m.

• 13.1 oz.
• Curly White with a black circle on her back and another around her tail with a white tip
  

Comet - Female

Born December 18, 2011 at 5:30 a.m.

• 13.3 oz.
• Black with white neck, chest and toes

Dancer - Female

Born December 18, 2011 at 6:15 a.m.

• 13.2 oz.
• White with a black circle on her back and black on the inside of her left ear

Dasher - Female

Born December 18, 2011 at 7:05 a.m.

• 11.1oz.
• Curly White with a black mask and small black patch on top of her head
  

Vixen - Female

Born December 18, 2011 at 8:20 a.m.

• 13.8 oz.
• White with black face and white line, white neck and chest, black triangle on the back of her neck
  

Rudolph - Male

Born December 18, 2011 at 8:55 a.m.

• 14.1 oz.
• Curly Black with white toes, belly, mitts on back feet and slight white spots on the back of his neck

Blitzen - Female

Born December 18, 2011 at 10:02 a.m.

• 12.4 oz.
• White with 2 black circles on her back, 1 above and 1 over her tail, black right eye patch and right ear
  

Donner - Male

Born December 18, 2011 at 11:50 a.m.

• 12.1 oz.
• White with a black circle on his back and black right ear

Prancer - Female

Born December 18, 2011 at 12:18 p.m.

• 13.7 oz.
• Black with white chest and tips of her toes on all her feet













December 18, 2011

Zoe's due date was December 17th, and like Bo, we began taking her temperature days before.  She was consistently 99.6 degrees and rarely changed.  

In the early morning of December 18th, around 2:30 a.m., Mike and I had a shift change in the puppy room after I had taken a nice 6 hour sleep in my bed.  Zoe was happy to see me and I took her outside to go pee.  A short one at first, then she squatted for a much longer one next.  Highly unusual I sensed something might be happening.  When we got back in the puppy room she seemed quite anxious and whimpered a bit circling in her "puppy pool".  Moments later her first puppy was presented, it was breach and her water had not broken yet.  I assist her and at 3:08 a.m. her first puppy was born.  I woke Mike up by calling his cell phone and he arrived on the scene having had just fallen asleep.  It would be another 2 1/2 hours before her water finally broke and puppy number two arrived.

Christine and Emma Pitcher arrived on the scene for puppy number four and Mike headed back to bed.  Poor Zoe struggled with each one as they were HUGE weighing in on average 13 oz..  One of the puppies had been taking a while and she was quite uncomfortable so Chris was giving her a nice scratch and Zoe loved it so much she began to relax and turned over on her back.  It was then that she delivered puppy number five, it just slide right out.

By the time she delivered puppy number six weighing in at a whopping 14.1 oz., we had determined that she must be done.  She was much more relaxed, got herself in a really comfortable position and appeared to be done.  In fact at this point the weight of her 6 puppies had exceeded the total weight of Bo's 8 puppies, so we were convinced.  Chris and Emma headed home to take their showers and get started on their very busy day.  Before they got into the shower, puppy number seven had arrived.  Much to my surprise this followed with number's eight and then nine.  Unbelievable given the size of these puppies.  She was big, but honestly I am not sure how she carried such a large litter as she is only 48 lbs and the total weight of the litter was 7.3 lbs.  A ratio we humans would find unbearable. 

Of course she exceeded my expectations of her being a good mother as she is extraordinary in her love and caring for her litter. 

Well done Zoe!