Pups,Kittens and Bunnies

We seem to be accumulating animals (or at least potential animals) at an alarming rate. Mum and Dad have been looking to bring the dog count back up to three after the passing of Haggis. I am told I am a 'natural only child' rather resentful of the intrusion and jealous of my Dad's lurve, but I get no say in this, I just have to put up with it. I am told it is good for my soul and makes me a more rounded character. Anyway, there was talk that new dog 3 might or might not be a westie, and that Dad might finally take a look at long haired Golden Retrievers despite the mud of Roscommon, although Mum was looking a bit askance at this suggestion.

Then, 7 weeks ago or so, into heat came the Silverwood's young westie bitch, Lily, and into the job vacancy stepped their young boy dog, Maxwell. One thing led to another and soon young Lily was showing some obvious signs of being with child. My top picture here is Lily at her widest and most barn door, taken on Sunday when Mum and Dad had headed down to Silverwood to collect J-M's two rabbits, Ginny and Padfoot (but that's another story). That night, the Sunday 3rd June of Bank Holiday weekend  in Ireland (Jubilee Weekend in UK) Lily decided she was fully cooked and tonight was the night. Between about midnight and 0600 first time mother Lily slid 7 new pups into the world almost with not a bother (a brief howl at the first one's exit and then one afterbirth getting beaten into the canal by a quick pup so that we had pup, pup, afterbirth, afterbirth which caused palpitations for the Midwife (Mrs Silverwood covering the night shift)

Mrs S helped break the membrane around the nose of pup 1 but after that all was plain sailing with Lily proving to be an excellent Mum, licking all the babies clean, slurping up the afterbirths as per textbook birth and nipping through the cords very neatly on all of them. She accepted all 7 onto her (conveniently 7 in number) teats and let go her colostrum and milk to beat the band. We now have 7 plump, wriggling contented pups, a happy, healthy mother and poor aul' Maxwell banished for the moment to a life of pacing the corridor outside the Maternity Ward, wishing he could nip off down the pub to wet the baby's head, baby's head, baby's head etc

Whilst all this westie production was going on, Mum was also getting a hankering for some kittens or cats back in her life like we had in the early days of Faversham, before I was born. Mum has quite often had cats in her life and loves a kitten, but had abstained after their last cat (Felix) passed away because 'we' had three dogs.

So, stepping into the fray in a timely manner came the Silverwood's builder Tommo and his wife Sylvia who have a pair of fluffy cats described as having "bottle brush tails". The female was with child and due to give birth at roughly the same time as Lily, so Mum tentatively put her name down for 2 kittens.

And so it happened that the cat decided that her kittens were also fully cooked on the same night as Lily, and on Monday morning we heard that she'd had three and that we could have, if we liked, a boy and a girl "bottle brush kitten". This will be in about 6 weeks, so about mid July. Everyone is wondering what I'll make of kittens, given that my default setting is to chase anything that runs away, but Kittens are more likely to run at you and mug you. Could be interesting. Do I have any kind of maternal instinct or not? Kittens? Pups? Where will it all end?

Deefs