Tails of the Unexpected (2007)
ONCE UPON A TIME…
Once upon a time there was a beautiful golden retriever called Kaleigh who, after a very rough start on the streets in Ireland, had found her perfect forever home with Kerry and Graham in Surrey.
Her new owners had, previously spent a happy weekend with her and her fosterers, Andy and Val, and they made sure that she and another dog, belonging to their mum, would be totally compatible, as they would be spending a lot of time together. Then they returned the following weekend to collect her and, very happily, took her home.
Unfortunately, in the meantime, Kaleigh had a bit of an upset tum so she had to go to see the vet who EXAMINED her THOROUGHLY including her TUMMY and delared it was just A VIRUS! Apart from this, Kaleigh was absolutely fine.
The following weekend, Kaleigh went off to her wonderful new home in Surrey and all was well until four days after arriving, she went to the vet to be registered and, after a FULL examination, he DECLARED HER FIT AND HEALTHY. Her new owners expressed concern that, in the time between first meeting her and now, some 10 days later, Kaleigh had gained weight and her teats were becoming more pronounced so they asked if she could possibly be pregnant?. The vet said it was POSSIBLE but he would not know for sure without a scan.
KALEIGH’S BIG SURPRISE
The scan showed that Kaleigh was 8 weeks pregnant with 7 or 8 babies but the vet said that the scan could be 5 days out either way so they could be IMMINENT which meant we all went into total panic mode. The owners, although loving her dearly, were in no way equipped to deal with babies
Well, we all raced into action that day (Weds) and Lorraine found a fosterer just for the night (Cher Bygrave) who had whelped bitches before. Thank you SO MUCH to Cher for helping us out of a fix and taking good care of our little lady for us.
Her distraught owners CAREFULLY drove Kaleigh for over 2hrs to get to Hertfordshire and, very tearfully, left her behind with Lorraine and Cher. They were terrified that we would not allow Kaleigh to return to them after her maternal duties were done but, of course, we know she has a wonderful home with very caring parents and there would have been no way that this would have happened .
More frantic phonecalls were made the next day and we had a new bed for the night for Kaleigh on the Thursday, in Abingdon, just around the corner from Joy, who was going to be her midwife. This meant Joy returning a day early from her holiday but, as Joy, loves puppies, it was, in her eyes, a small sacrifice to have to make.
On the Thursday night, Lorraine and Gareth, again very CAREFULLY transported the very obviously pregnant Kaleigh (well, obviously pregnant EXCEPT TO A VET) from St Albans to Abingdon to the home of Ken and Julie. They had adopted Duke from us 2 years before and were only too glad to help. Here they met with a very nervous Pauline who was to spend an anxious night with Kaleigh JUST IN CASE.
As luck would have it, the night was uneventful and Joy came home and prepared the maternity suite for Kaleigh. Fortunately, her own girl, Tara, is a GDBA brood bitch so Joy had more or less everything to hand and, more importantly, a lot of experience and knowledge of what to do (unlike a very relieved Pauline).
Pauline and Joy then got everything organised and Pauline spent one more night to help settle Kaleigh in with Joy, Fable and Tara before leaving Joy to her ministrations.
As much good food as possible was now going to be given to Kaleigh to try to build her up as, although she had been fed well, she had in no way been treated like a mum to be. In the end, the angels smiled on us and gave us 10 days before the happy event.
The Puppies
