Occurred on August 31, 2022 / Trenton, Texas, USA
: Nova, our Pyrenean Mastiff, gave birth to 12 beautiful Pyrenean Mastiff puppies. Nova is a part of a rare breed from Spain that is working on making its comeback from almost going extinct. After having 12 puppies nova spent the first day with the litter to provide Colostrum and bonding with her babies. But 12 puppies is a lot to feed and keep healthy growing weights on by yourself. Then we welcomed Brooklyn, our Golden Retriever momma who had 6-week-old puppies on the ground, into the whelping box to give the little babies a chance to eat more than what their momma could provide. When mothers first have puppies they can be territorial so we expected this to fail and planned on being there to help at every step. To our surprise, Nova welcomed the help and accepted Brooklyn into the box to feed and clean a few babies at a time. This helped make sure all 12 babies pottied when they needed it, it kept them fed and growing, and it gave babies more mom time as they were able to cuddle and be pampered by 2 mommas at once. Brooklyn was a great filler momma who would come feed and clean babies every few hours, while Nova spent the majority of her time in the whelping box. After 12 days Nova was producing enough milk to feed her babies all on her own and Brooklyn did not need to help anymore. Now the litter has grown up enough to go to their own homes, but for the start of their life, they got to have 2 mommas instead of one.
