We have a winner!

My mother-in-law was closest, with her guess of eight puppies. No one was close on time. Glory surprised all of us by apparently popping out the first one with little effort at 7:35pm mountain time. It was a little boy who we have nicknamed "Tank" because he weighed in at an impressive 12oz! That's 3/4 of a pound. When we saw that one, I thought there couldn't be more than five. Reid guessed 7. We were all wrong...

Glory had her last of nine puppies at 12:40am. We waited until about 2 to make sure that was indeed the last and then moved her and all of the pups into a new, slightly bigger and clean box in our guest bathroom. All of the puppies are black with bits of white and they all appear to be doing well (breathing and nursing, though it's difficult to be sure they are all getting equal nursing time with so many of them). We have a vet's appointment in an hour to have them all checked over and I'm sure we'll inundate them with questions, as new foster parents! And now... puppy pictures!

Here is Glory on Sunday afternoon, still quite pregnant... but obviously relaxed in our home, and using the dog bed I just finished the other day!

Here is Glory with "The Tank." She was up walking around minutes before he was born. Then she climbed in her box and Tater went over and sniffed her. I thought, "how sweet... Tater is checking on her." I took a step closer, and heard a squeak... and there was baby number 1!

Here she is in a "resting" phase. She had two sets of "twins" who were born within minutes of one another and the rest were spaced almost exactly an hour in between.

A box full of puppies... you can almost see her counting them, can't you?

Some of them caught on to suckling almost instantly!

The one on the foreground was the first female born (we ended up with four males and five females)... and she took to suckling like she had been doing it forever!

I just thought this picture was cute.

Well, we know mama is a beagle... we're thinking daddy might have been Vulcan!

This is after we got the puppies and mama moved... Glory was very sweet with Tater during her delivery (he spent most of it in the other room on the bed)... but she now growls quietly when he walks by. Needless to say, Tater is confused about what's going on in his house!

And finally, everyone peaceful and cozy this morning... what a good mama, hunh? And now, I have to go get ready to take ten dogs to the vet!