During the two months leading up to the six-way puppy birthday shown in the photos below, I thought Coulee was only having a “false pregnancy.” But clearly it was real. Yes, she was getting bigger around the middle. Yes, her teats got more swollen every day. And yes, she was ravishingly hungry — it was if no amount of food I gave her would satisfy her caloric needs, which made no sense to me at the time. The day before giving birth, she ran nearly 12 miles in the woods, and though she was a bit more sluggish than usual, nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me.
But the following evening I noticed a change in her behavior. She couldn’t get comfortable. She’d ask to go outside, pace around for a few minutes, then want to come right back in—she’s not a full house dog, but I do let her hang out and sleep in a crate in our living room. In her crate, she wouldn’t stop digging into her blankets, then was visibly frustrated that no matter how hard she would dig, no den was forming. I let her into the garage kennel where I have various dog beds and barrels full of straw and shavings set up—I like to give the dogs a variety of options. Again, she would pace around for a bit, then jump into one of the barrels and do more of what I can only describe as “nest building.” She didn’t seem sick or anything, but I decided to stay with her to make sure.
At around 8 o’clock, all the other dogs were tucked into their kennels for the night asleep, but Coulee was still up and doing stranger and stranger things. I checked her gums and although they were a bit duller than usual, they weren’t the stark white that means shock and a rush to the vet. But I did feel that her lip flesh was noticeable colder than usual. I called my wife into the garage to take a look—I still didn’t think anything was too wrong, but I wanted a second set of eyes for reassurance.
Then something completely unexpected happened.
“Honey,” I said to my wife. “Did you just see that liquid stuff come out of her cooch?”
“Um, yeah I did,” she replied. “What is that?”
“Did her water just break?” I asked in utter disbelief.
Not thirty seconds later, Coulee stood there in front of me as something emerged from her lady parts.
“OH MY GOD SHE’S GIVING BIRTH!”
And the rest is history.
Day 1: June 6th, 2022, 8:37 PM PST
The first four puppies came out within about 15 to 20 minutes of each other. I had read before that first time dog mothers will often give birth to small litters, so initially I thought only 2 were coming out. But they just kept coming. Since she was standing while birthing the first puppy, it hung out of her in its ambiotic sac, she stood there and licked at it and seemed like she was slightly confused about what was happening. This was a brand-new experience for me, so I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to help the process and mostly just let it play out, but I did help gently pull the first puppy out and set it on the ground. Coulee licked and bit at the sack until it popped, then licked the puppy until it started breathing. I was blown away by how her motherly instincts kicked in and she automatically knew what to do.
Since we did not know that Coulee was pregnant, we were entirely unprepared in terms of providing a whelping area for her. The red material she’s laying on with her newborn puppies is an old sleeping bag that was in the kennel and luckily was decently clean, but looking back I wish I would’ve been able to give her a proper whelping den.
After each puppy came out, I thought “OK, that’s gotta be the last one.” Each time I was wrong. After number four, I decided to move Coulee from the garage kennel to her indoor crate which we lined with fresh blankets. Hilariously, about 10 minutes after moving her, I re-counted the number of puppies and laughed out loud as my count was five and not four as before. Another had popped out completely uneventfully and without any mess. And then, yes, another puppy came out in a similar manner for a total of six. I don’t think I slept at all that night and re-counted the puppies every 20 minutes or so, half expecting another to be added to the lot. All the puppies latched on right away and seemed healthy. To date, that night was one of the most awe-inspiring episodes of my life. While I knew there would be countless challenges ahead, I was overwhelmed with joy.
Day 2: June 7th, 2022
Coulee went seamlessly into full Mom-mode and took impeccable care of her puppies. Watching her tend to their every need gave me tremendous confidence in her abilities as a mother and put my mind at ease. I was following her lead and was simply there as support. I took the day off work and rushed out first thing in the morning to buy a big bag of puppy food for her. Although the puppies were unexpected, I did not feel fully unprepared thanks to the bounty of knowledge that can be found on the Internet. I tapped into every resource I knew of, one of which was a livestream done by Houndsman XP with Chip Kohser of Joy Dog Food. I listened to it twice and took notes, which gave me an incredible roadmap for raising these newborn puppies, at least from a nutritional standpoint.
Despite Coulee’s efforts to keep the puppies clean, her bedding got soiled rather quickly. Anytime I needed to change her blankets, I put the puppies in a box lined with a flannel pillowcase which made for some adorable photos.
This is the only female in the litter. We named her Tika. Notice how only her head is dark and the rest of her body is white—she was the only puppy with markings like that. I decided to wait until the morning after to weight the pups and I used my trusty kitchen scale. I measured in grams for precision and documented everything on an Excel spreadsheet which I have maintained to this day.
This is the runt of the litter, a male we named Pip. He weighed exactly half as much as the other males. The first few days Pip worried me because, while he was latching on and eating a lot, he was only gaining a few grams per day whereas the other pups were almost doubling daily. But by day three, he started showing solid gains and has been healthy, though smaller, ever since.
This is Bruno, one of the middle-of-the-road males in terms of weight. Bruno had the darkest colors of the litter. Keep in mind that at this point, I had no idea who the father was. As you see, all the puppies were basically just black and white so I wasn’t sure if they were Roux’s, my Walker male, or Plum, my Bluetick male.
This is another male I named Lefty, due to the black spot on the left side of his body. Lefty was the largest pup of the litter and is one who ended up finding another home with an awesome family out on the coast. He’s living a great life.
This is a male I named Clover due to the light spots on his back that I thought looked like a three-leaf clover. Another middle-of-the-road pup in terms of weight, Clover has turned out to be our tallest and lankiest pup, but also one of the absolute sweetest and loviest.
This is a male I called Righty, the second largest of the litter who within about a week out-ate everyone else and ended up being substantially larger than the others. Righty also found another home with one of my coworkers and is also living a great life under the new name of Dax.
Day 3: June 7th, 2022
Coulee in mom mode. I can’t stress how great of a mom she was and is—she still checks on her pups to make sure they are clean and healthy.
Tika on the left and Pip on the right. Newborn puppies spend all their time either eating or sleeping. Nothing else. Luckily, Coulee produced an abundance of milk and had zero issues making sure her pups were well fed.
Day 5: June 9th, 2022
Another bed-change box photo. It was incredible to watch how fast these puppies grew. Every time I looked at or handled them, they were bigger.
Day 6: June 10th, 2022
This photo was the first time Coulee stepped away from her puppies for more than a few minutes to use the bathroom. After six days of constant attention and feeding, she needed a break and slept here on the floor, completely zonked, for about two hours.
I kept Coulee supplied with all the food and water she could eat and drink and she kept her puppies full of nutritious milk.
Day 9: June 13th, 2022
The puppy piles were epic.
Coulee was a great mother and always made sure her pups were warm and well fed.
Day 11: June 15th, 2022
While it’s obvious now who the father is, when the puppies were first born I truly had no idea whether it was my Bluetick male, Plum, or my Walker male, Roux. In this photo, you can see the ticking starting to show up along with the dark colored toes. But before this point, the pups all just looked black and white. I’ve said it before but there never was a time I can point to where Coulee was alone long enough to breed with either males and I know for certain that they never tied. Plum must have snuck it in there just long enough to plant his blue seed.
For the first two weeks I checked on the puppies at least once an hour and would count them every time to make sure they were all there.
This here is Pip, the runt, and it was quite a relief when he finally started posting some serious weight gains.
Day 13: June 17th, 2022
Watching the pups grow at a ridiculously fast rate was an incredible experience.
Day 15: June 19th, 2022
There’s nothing cuter than tiny little hound puppies fast asleep.
Day 17: June 21st, 2022
The question of who was the father was a common topic of discussion in our household until it became blatantly obvious that we were working with a whole mess of blue dogs.
There were some logistical challenges when deciding where to keep the puppies. Luckily, I have a lot of various kennel panels and crates around so I was able to improvise some nice setups for Coulee. Thanks to it being summer, keeping the pups warm was easy, though I still kept a fancy thermometer leftover from my coffee roasting days tapped into their kennel to make sure it was nice and toasty.
Eyes wide open around the 2.5 week mark.
Day 18: June 22, 2022
I spent a lot of time reading a lot of different forums about whelping puppies and it was shocking to hear about all the different things that can go wrong. Thankfully, Coulee had no issues at all producing plenty of milk and there was never a moment that the puppies showed anything other than perfect health. Praise God!
Day 19: June 23rd, 2022
At some point I moved the puppies and Coulee into one of our spare bedrooms where within a short amount of time they completely ruined the carpet. Oh well, it needed to be replaced anyway.
We’ll pause there for today. Click the button below to go to Part 2:
If you aren’t subscribed, there’s no better time than now!
Thanks for reading Hound on the Run! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
P.S. Did you know I wrote a book about my bobcat hunting adventures? It’s called Cat Dog Chronicles and I wrote it to share my journey with both other hound hunters and non-hunters alike. Fellow hunters — I know you’ll find it entertaining and relatable … But if you’ve never been hound hunting but are curious about what it’s really like, my personal story will give you a glimpse into this complex sport and show that it’s not as easy as you might think!
