Chapter 25 #2
“I checked through your supplies. I think you thought of everything. How many times have you done this before?” Kurt asked.
“Only twice.” The number sounded very small to her ears.
“One of the live births that I saw was a seven-year-old Chihuahua. It was touch and go with her. One of our volunteers is a retired vet. She had to assist in the delivery of all three puppies, or I don’t think the mom would’ve made it.
The other birth was a Lab, and she was a pro like I’m hoping Pepper will be. How about you?”
“Zero. I helped deliver a baby to an Afghan woman though. ‘Woman’ is not the right word for it. She was fifteen tops. It was a nightmare.”
Tess, who’d just come into the room, shuddered. “Were she and the baby okay?”
“Thankfully.”
Not for the first time, Kelsey wondered how much Kurt was holding in from all those years of service.
He’d lost dogs in his charge and friends who’d been working alongside him…
She knew that much. Once in a while, he’d say something specific like this, but he’d never go into any real detail.
He seemed to prefer to lock things away and keep too busy to dwell on them.
She wasn’t sold on the idea that this approach was healthy long-term.
It would be better if he could find release.
But that, she suspected, would be something he’d have to decide to do on his own.
From her corner of the floor, Pepper let out a determined groan. The dog’s muscles tensed as she strained.
“She’s contracting,” Kelsey whispered. Sabrina Raven’s house was about to be filled with new life.
Kurt motioned toward the whelping box. “I don’t think she’d mind your company, Kels. Tess and I can hang back so as not to crowd her.”
Kelsey wasn’t about to argue. She stepped over the makeshift plywood playpen, its floor covered with old towels and blankets, and crouched next to Pepper.
She stroked the dog’s head and whispered a string of encouraging words.
Pepper’s nubbin of a tail wagged a few times before she had a few whole-body contractions.
The metallic smell of blood mixed with pungent dog filled the air.
After a few minutes of crouching in place and petting Pepper, Kelsey started developing pangs in her knees. She was thinking about repositioning when Pepper curled around and started to lick underneath her tail.
“I see its face emerging,” Tess whispered. “Oh wow, it’s still in the sac. This is so cool.”
Pepper began to lick vigorously as the first puppy slid the rest of the way out. Tears stung Kelsey’s eyes.
Kurt stood at the edge of the whelping box, a towel and baby nasal aspirator in hand. “So far, so good. It’s better to let her stimulate her pups to breathe than for us to do it.”
With Pepper busy with her baby, Kelsey joined Kurt and Tess at the edge of the box. “I don’t think there’s anything cuter than Rottweiler puppies.”
Kurt met her gaze and winked. “It looks like an encased link of sausage to me.”
Tess laughed. “I hate to say it, but he’s right.”
After several minutes of vigorous licking, the puppy was cleaned of its sac, wiggling about, and whimpering.
“Well done, Pepper,” Kurt said. “Look. It’s already making its way over to nurse.”
Even though it couldn’t support its own weight, the short-legged puppy was clearly making a beeline wiggle toward Pepper’s nearest teat.
And still sleek and wet as the little thing was, the brown markings on its face and feet stood apart from the black body, and its squished face was the cutest ever.
Kelsey snapped a few pictures to post on the shelter’s Facebook page.
“I was wondering if the father was a Rott too. From the looks of it, he was,” Kurt said.
“They can’t see or hear, but they can sure smell and sense their mother’s warmth, can’t they?” The look on Tess’s face made it clear she was as amazed by all this as Kelsey was.
After one dramatic attempt to shove forward, the little puppy rolled sideways, exposing its smooth belly. Pepper gave it a gentle nudge upright. “It’s a boy,” Kelsey said. She locked her hands together in front of her mouth. “It’s all I can do not to scoop him up.”
“Let him nurse a bit, then you can get him in the basket while she goes to work on number two. I’ve got the heating pad warming up.”
Once the puppy was latched on, Kelsey shot a bit of video. The soft suckling sound of such a tiny, helpless creature was almost too precious.
Pepper rested as her first puppy nursed.
Less than ten minutes later, she was panting again.
When it was obvious she was close to delivering another puppy, the first puppy was moved out of her way and wrapped in a soft hand towel.
Kelsey, who took the first turn holding him, stayed at the edge of the whelping box so Pepper would feel at ease that her puppy was being cared for.
After a few minutes, she passed the tiny guy to Tess, who cooed over him as he cuddled deeper into the towel and started dozing in her hands.
Puppies two and three came out one right after the other. The second pup looked exactly like the first. The third pup was much smaller and showed patches of white on its body even while still in the sac.
“She can’t clean them both at once.” Kurt handed Kelsey the nasal aspirator. “Want to suction the nose and mouth of the other one?”
Even though she was a little hesitant to aspirate such a tiny thing, Kelsey knew it needed to be done. Puppies had only a matter of minutes to start breathing after being delivered, and they often needed help from their mom or a human to clear away the sac.
Closer inspection showed the clear, membranous sac was already partially off and not covering the puppy’s face, so aspirating was easier than she’d expected. After a bit of suctioning, the brown-and-black puppy was breathing on her own. “This one’s a girl,” Kelsey said. “And she’s perfect.”
The next several hours passed in a blur.
Pepper rested between most of the deliveries, which gave the puppies a chance to nurse.
Soon, there were four girls and two boys.
Five of them looked like full-bred Rotts, and one, a little male, seemed to be part bluetick coonhound.
He had a white underbody speckled with brown and the longest ears Kelsey had ever seen on a dog that was half Rott.
“Looks like Pepper had a midnight rendezvous,” Kurt had said on seeing the little guy.
It wasn’t uncommon in cats and dogs for a large litter to be comprised of offspring from two or three different fathers, especially if the mothers were allowed to roam. Since Pepper had been part of a fighting ring, it was unlikely she was intentionally bred to a hound.
Kurt brewed a large pot of coffee around four in the morning while waiting for puppy number seven to come into the world. He carried up a tray of three steaming mugs of coffee, forks, and the cake they’d brought from the reception.
“Thought the sugar and caffeine might get us through till dawn.” Kurt sat the tray on the old dresser and carried over the cake and forks. He took a seat on the rickety full-size featherbed that Pepper had napped on until she grew too large to get up and down from it easily.
Kelsey continued standing, knowing if she sat on the cozy bed, she wouldn’t be able to get up.
Tess collapsed into a straight-backed wooden chair that had been carried in from Kurt’s room.
She yawned, rubbing her eyes and tucking her legs into a pretzel shape.
She was only a year or two younger than Kelsey, but she had an innocence about her that made her seem younger than her midtwenties.
The cake was perfect. Kelsey’s mouth watered at the hint of almond and the rich, creamy icing. It and the coffee were the pick-me-up she needed. By the time puppy number seven, another girl, had entered the world, Kelsey was ready to keep going until sunup.
Kurt, however, had stretched back on the bed after finishing off a slice of cake and fallen asleep within seconds.
He was dozing with his feet still touching the floor.
His breathing was soft and even. His shirt had lifted, exposing his smooth, toned midriff, one that she intended to lose hours kissing someday very soon.
Her blood pulsed faster at the thought. If Tess wasn’t here, Kelsey would have been tempted to wake him up for something that had nothing to do with the birth of Rottweiler puppies.
Her thoughts brought to mind the last time she’d tried to touch him while he slept.
Was he better now? Could he relax enough to fall asleep beside her when total exhaustion wasn’t pulling him under?
Tess, who was squatting beside the laundry basket where they were keeping the delivered pups safe and warm, seemed to read Kelsey’s mind.
Perhaps she’d caught the direction of Kelsey’s gaze.
“Just like these little guys are going to be, he was a handful even before he went into the service. Dogs were the only thing that could slow him down when he was a teenager. Otherwise he was in hyperdrive. I think I knew him for two years before he willingly took the time to talk to me about anything other than a dog. And honestly, that first conversation was only because I was crying.”
Kelsey had been gathering up soiled towels to take downstairs. She paused while they were still mounded on the floor. “What happened?”
“I can’t remember, so I don’t think it was anything too traumatic.
It was probably something one of my cousins did.
All I remember is that Kurt bought me my own bag of Sour Patch Kids, and I wished that he could be my big brother and Rob, my dad.
” She let out a little sigh. “I think I wished away my big, overbearing Italian family for more years than I should’ve. ”
“Well, if it helps, I have two older brothers, and I wished for a sister every birthday until I turned thirteen.”