Nine pups a suckling at seven days old

Smudge today. A week after having her c-section

Wow, it's May. The year is flying along and today Smudge's pups are seven days old, clocking up their first week. So time for a little video of Super Mum, Smudge and her nine Cavalier/Brittany pups.
I took the video just now. I must admit to watching them waking and wobbling about to find mum and then suddenly thought to film and missed that bit. You will hear my husband in the background say, "I'm full up now."  after he had come home for lunch telling me he was starving (It is chilly here at the moment with a North Easterly wind, which if working out doors gives you an appetite just keeping yourself warm) and had just finished eating a plate of homemade spaghetti bolognese left over from the night before. I will blow my own trumpet and must admit it was very nice, as I had run out of Worcester sauce, so used some balsamic vinegar which I prefer. I'm a bit of a vinegar connoisseur, having started early, when my mother found me in the cafe she had when I was a baby, sat on a table at around the age of two, drinking vinegar from the vinegar bottle on the table. I had already polished off the vinegar on the other half a dozen tables when she found me, apparently. I do like vinegar. 
Smudge in the video you notice is panting, as it is warm in the whelping box for the pups and with her milk bars full, her stomach and chest at the moment are almost insulated with the heat from her milk production, so this also makes her feel a bit uncomfortably warm. Smudge though is a clever mum and knows when her pups need tending and when they are sleeping she happily rests away from them on the cool wooden floor, but in ear shot.

And a few photos to end on of Smudge's nine pups at one week old.