Posted on 10/05/2010 10:36:52 AM PDT by JoeProBono
WHIDBEY ISLAND, Wash.- A Labrador retriever who was set to be spayed has given its owners in Washington state a litter of 16 puppies.
When the Hurst family of Whidbey Island took 3-year-old chocolate Lab Sugar Baby to a vet for a consultation about spaying her, they found out she was pregnant, the Whidbey (Wash.) News Times reported.
The dog started delivering puppies around noon Tuesday and she didn't finish for more than 12 hours, producing 16 black or yellow puppies -- one male black lab, six female black labs, five male yellow labs and four female yellow labs. Despite being a chocolate lab, Sugar did not give birth to any brown dogs.
Lacey Hurst took mother and brood to the veterinarian Wednesday and they are all in good health. She said some of the puppies will have to be bottle-fed because Sugar won't be able to produce enough milk to nurse all of them.
The puppies' father is probably a black lab they encountered while camping at Lake Stevens over the summer, Hurst said.
Now where am I gonna sleep?
Have never heard of a Dudley before. I've seen yellows with brown/pink noses but can't recall if I've seen a Dudley.
As for breed standards versus field, all I can say is I hate the AKC. That is all. :)
Well I'll be darned. Never heard of that, but apparently that is what my 8 year old Lab is. Her name is Penny, and she is a fantastic dog. Her mom was yellow and her dad waas black. They had twelve puppies, blacks, browns and yellows in the litter.
The reliable way to tell a true "Dudley" is to look at the eye rims. They are obviously pink, where a yellow even with winter nose will have black eyeliner.
I don't much care for the way AKC conformation Labs are going -- the hunting people call them "Pigadors". Many of them have lost the ability to hunt. That was brought home to me when I was the gunner for an AKC Working Certificate test at the National Specialty . . . lots of the conformation people brought their Labs out to see if they could get a WC on them (it looks good to puppy purchasers). I'd say about half of them had almost no drive to retrieve -- and they certainly didn't know what to do with a recently deceased mallard.
Your Penny got a yellow (e) gene and a chocolate (b) gene from each parent, so she is a chocolate Lab with a yellow coat!
Whatever those show folks say, she is still a purebred, still a Lab, and can do anything performance-wise that any other Lab can do (except go in the show ring, but I've never had the slightest desire to go there and I don't think most people do. It's like watching paint dry, compared to running an agility course or hunting test or even the obedience ring).
And she's a cutie!
And that’s been proven before by dogs that have continued to lie on their dead owner’s graves, and other similar stories.
I believe we all share your feelings Hodar. We never forget them.
Thanks for the ping Joe. Wonderful pictures you posted. Wow, 16 puppies is amazing.
Poor thing! She’ll have to feed them in shifts since she only has ten seats at the milk bar. There will be lots of PMR and tiny bottles in her owners’ future!
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