Its six !

Its six bonnie pups and all born naturally. Smudge is doing really well and is such a relaxed Mum and believe me that really helps when they are like that. You want the Mum attentive but to attentive and busy with the pups can be detrimental as much as a Mum that has not got a clue and looks at her pups to say, "What's that ?"
The last pup was born at 2.10 am this morning, she expelled the last afterbirth at 4.00 am, which weighed nearly the same as a pup and I stayed with her until 6 am and it was apparent that the mass in her stomach was just her uterus contracting down. My husband was up then and took over Mum and puppy watch, and also getting the children ready for school. I was up again at 7,30 am, took the rest of the pack for a quick jog, saw the children off to school and then I set about getting Smudge cleaned up and turning the labour ward into maternity ward.
Smudge has done a grand job and proves that a bitch after a c-section can then deliver naturally. With her first litter she did birth the first pup and if she had not shown that she could pass a pup through her pelvis, we would not be sitting here today admiring these six new arrivals. With her first litter, I had to be somewhere else that morning that I just could not get out of and my husband was left in charge with strict instructions that if a pup did not come in two hours, to ring the vets. A pup did not come in two hours and Smudge went to the vets and with the situation of me not in attendance and the fact that they know I would of been mortified to lose our Smudge or for her to over duly suffer, I think this may of swayed the decision to c-section than just give her a bit more time, she had nine live pups and all was okay, but whelping her in now and getting the litter off all naturally feels like I've made it up for not being able to be there for her first time round. Real sense of acheivement and although sleep deprived I'm happy and most importantly Smudge is happily nursing her six charges.
We made a bit of a mistake in weighing the first few pups, I think this might of been from lack of sleep, reading the dial wrong and the pups that where weighed at just over 8 ounces where more like nearly 10 ounces in weight. The pups range from 9 to 11 onces in weight which is big pups from a Cavalier, Smudge is big for a Cavalier but taking into account they are at least 3 days early, that shows she cooks her pups well.
After having nine with her first litter some might see six as a bit of a come down and I must admit having nine for a Cavalier litter, it can put the expectation at a high level for the next litter, but it also can spell disaster as well because having big litters can compromise the unterus to such an extent, it can even be hard to even get a bitch in pup again or with a good size litter, let alone whelp naturally, so Smudge is entering into the exceptional bitch catergory. She's got tonnes of milk and I can already see the pups have put on weight over night, have rug the vet this morning to get a bottle of calcium tablets, just to help keep her levels up, as she is an exceptional lactater.
I will be in contact with all hoping to have a pup from this litter, either today or it will be by tomorrow. Just want to try and catch a nap in a minute. We have had a bit of a crisis though yesterday, of all the days to stop working (loads of dirty towels etc from whelping in Smudge) our washing machine decided to die, so waiting on a chap to take a look to see if worth repairing, so using emergency back up. Husband as gone to mother-in-laws with the washing from the whelping, she has a bigger washing machine than my Mum's washing machine in the annexe.
Photo's below are Smudge's pups this morning and her after a clean up and in the maternity ward.