Five new members of the Balls Family

Cricket gave birth to five healthy little puppies yesterday. Four girls and one boy. More photos to come. I should say BETTER photos to come, thanks to Megan's super-dooper camera.


Cricket went into labor this morning. By noon, she was well on her way to motherhood. By 12:25 p.m., the first little girl popped out. I don't think Cricket quite knew what to do. The puppy had a thin membrane over her face and Cricket wasn't tearing it off as fast as I would like, so I did. We wanted to see the little thing start breathing.

I was due at the hospital in 15 minutes for another spinal injection and I didn't want to miss the other births. We called the hospital to see if they were on time. . . .yes they were. Darn! I left Dan and Megan in charge. Megan brought over her nice camera, and we were snapping pictures right and left.

When my injection was done at 1:54 p.m., I called Dan to come and pick me up. I wasn't to drive home. When we got home, Dan told me we had four puppies. Three were born while I was gone. I rushed to Cricket's side as all good mothers do. I counted. . .1-2-3-4-5 puppies. One was born while Dan was gone to pick me up. I think the last one was Cricket's runt. She was still wet when I picked her up.

Crick is a good mom. I had to bring food and water to her. She rarely leaves their side.

Lot's of action at our house. Around 3:30 p.m., I laid down as my back was hurting after the injection. I took a muscle relaxer as my doctor advised. I fell asleep not waking until this morning (26th) at 8 a.m. I missed all the excitement but I was dead to the world.