Even more exciting than welcoming our fabulous guests back to Faldonside Escapes, our gorgeous fox red labrador Jaffa presented us with an amazing 8….yes 8 puppies at the end of September. If you follow us on Instagram you will see that our usual pictures of interiors haven’t had a look in against ones of these little bundles of cuteness #puppyspamgalore. With family foreign holidays being temporarily off our agenda, this was the perfect opportunity to realise our dream of introducing some Jaffarettes into the World and all we needed now was her beau…...cue Rummy, another fox red labrador, who wooed Jaffa within minutes before having a bonio & falling asleep his job done. Jaffa was scanned a few weeks later and we were delighted to be told she would be having 6 puppies maybe even 7…...
….6 weeks on and having never delivered puppies before I sought the expert advice of my good friend YouTube and ended up traumatised as I looked on as I am hopeless with blood & yucky things. With Pete being similarly afflicted on the ‘messy’ front, I at least felt this research made me slightly better prepared and less nervous.
Our worry was that we wouldn’t be sure when Jaffa was going into labour however she kindly provided us with plenty of clues as she ripped her bed to shreds & destroyed a carpet whilst nesting and then the panting commenced. When puppy number one appeared in unladylike fashion, big and struggling, my intensive YouTube training went into automatic pilot and I removed the sack & her first wordly experience was of my red wine breath as I blew into her face.
With Jaffa now thankfully back in control, she went on to successfully deliver another 2 girls and 5 boys over the course of the next few hours as our kids watched on in amazement, a unique family experience that we will never forget as I, for one, couldn’t get over that in only 9 weeks we now had these gorgeous puppies. The puppies are now 4 weeks old and weaning is just about to commence; the ‘fun’ part of puppy porridge everywhere!
We are keeping one of the girls which our kids would like to name Dixie after a TikTok star but the jury is currently still out on that one! It will be heartbreaking when the other puppies all leave Faldonside but fortunately for us their forever homes are all with family & friends so we should see them regularly as they grow up…..we have loved every minute of it.
