My Best Friends Have Hairy Legs Read Online Free PDF Page B

ground, dancing on her toes trying to make him stop and lay down again. She would growl and bark at him, grabbing his lower lip or neck in her “attacks” and he would just stand there and tolerate it, sometimes “face-fighting” with her. With his mouth open he would make noise and act as if he was going to bite her, but never once actually biting her. We would often find them sleeping together, Shotzy stretched out on his side with Chynna stretched out on top of him as if he were a big soft pillow.
    When she was a year and a half old we bred Chynna, wanting her to have one litter before we had her spayed. We were hoping for a fawn female to keep. The pregnancy went well, and the puppies were born on July 5, a Sunday that year. It was the only Sunday Will had ever worked, both before and after that day—which considering his aversion to the sight of blood, was probably a good thing. I’d never been pregnant or even had a dog or cat that had been so was naïve about what would happen—or what could go wrong.
    Chynna had been reluctant to get off the water bed that morning, and needing to wash the sheets I picked her up and put her on the floor. As I walked down the hall in front of her, my arms loaded with the sheets, I was talking to her about how much I would have liked to have slept late as well, but there was just too much to do before Will got home from work. As I turned to see if she was following me, I saw her starting to squat in the hall as if to go to the bathroom and knew instantly that she was in labor. I dropped the sheets and hurried to pick her up and carried her to the box we had prepared in the enclosed patio. As soon as I set her down, she delivered her first puppy, and then ran panicked to hide in the bottom of the cat condo. Fortunately, the puppy broke free from the placental sac when it was born. I grabbed the portable phone and called the emergency vet in a panic. Chynna didn’t want anything to do with the puppy, and I didn’t know what to do. As they walked me through tying off the umbilical cord with a piece of dental floss and cutting it with scissors sterilized with rubbing alcohol, Chynna continued to hide. I know she was worried about what she probably thought was a very painful bathroom accident in the house. I gently rubbed the puppy dry with a clean towel and set it on a heating pad, covered with another towel and set to low. It was a little girl, black in color just like Chynna. I then cleaned up the dirty towels and finally coaxed Chynna out of the condo. We didn’t know how many puppies she was pregnant with, and since it had been almost an hour since the birth, I didn’t think she had any more. I gave her lots of praise and hugs while I introduced her to the puppy. Then she started squatting again and tried to deliver another puppy, but this time, the puppy appeared to be stuck. I could see the chubby little face, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Gently I pushed Chynna’s skin back from his cheeks so I could gently pull on his face and he suddenly popped out. He was much bigger than the first little girl, and also a black one. Chynna again hid in the cat condo while I cleaned the new puppy and cut his cord. Once the new puppy was cleaned and resting with the other, they both started crying and Chynna came over to see them. Her curiosity got the best of her and she began to lick them clean. Over the next four hours she delivered four more puppies, almost one an hour. The third puppy was a fawn boy, almost as big as the first boy, then a black girl, another smaller black boy, and then finally—our little fawn girl that we named Crystal. When she was born, her sac didn’t break open when she dropped, and as she frantically scratched from inside the sac, I was frantically trying to tear it open. Finally I was able to snip it open and she was safe. After almost six hours Chynna had six puppies in all, three girls, three boys, four blacks and two fawns. All of them were healthy. By