Final Tally: 12

That's right, TWELVE surviving pups. (There were 13, but one wasn't viable.) Four girls, 8 boys. All blond. A few smaller ones, but over all, good sizes pups. And Cotton is doing marvellously! After the hormones kicked in, she turned in to a real mother (no pun intended!) She's been stretched out on her side with pups filling the area between her legs AND under her tail and nestled between her chin and chest. Pups everywhere! I used my "hot water bottle" trick during the night (give the babies something warm to snuggle against and they don't all need to be next to mom all the time) and by this morning, Cotton had figured out how to handle the situation. She will need some practice getting up and down and walking around without stepping on anyone, but she's going to be a terrific mama! This is such a huge litter, especially for a fairly small dog, that I'll probably have to assist. But that's okay. Long about the 8th puppy, I told her I would have been happy with 5-6 but by then, it was too late. Pictures probably tomorrow.

Update 2:30 PM
I'm having trouble with the website, so there's no additional info there. (Don't know why these people can't leave well enough alone. Whatever happened to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it?" I've used ipower as a host for 10 years and now they want to do all the coding themselves... like this blog site does... why did I spend all this time learning html if THEY were going to do it? And why weren't they doing it all along if it's such a great thing? Bah, humbug!)