The Heli-crew have landed

 While Bliss and the Reservoir Pups were keeping us occupied, poor Elf took herself off onto the Helipad and began excavations creating a subterranean dwelling in which she began to give birth. Now the vet was pretty sure she hadn't started labour but we were pretty sure she was showing at least signs but confident that she was a week or so behind Bliss we let her outside unsupervised. Squealing alerted us to the drama about to unfold and so while yours truly juggled Bliss' pups and feeding bottles my beautiful and oh so pregnant wife set up a maternity suite in the conservatory and as Elf's whelping box had yet to arrive she had to make do with the floor.

Elf was brilliant and pretty soon the numbers of pups at HQ began to rise. The Heli-crew are;

 Ms Bell 12 oz

Ms Puma 8oz

Ms Fairy 8oz

Mr Merlin 10oz

Mr Chinook 14 oz

Ms Apache 14oz

Elf also gave birth to a tiny 4oz girl who lived for around 8 hours, a still birth girl at 12.45 am who weighed 12 oz and unbelievably another still birth girl at 10am this morning! She weighed a mighty 14 oz. At 5am Elf had an accident and lay on Ms Apache so by mid morning today she was left with a litter of 5. 

 Her whelping box arrived and once the puzzle was put together (its a brilliant bit of kit, details of where to get one will be listed soon) she moved in with the Heli-crew.

 As Bliss had 10 pups, which she was thankfully taking over the feeding of, a plan to get Elf to foster Mr Black and Ms Turquoise was hatched. Mr Black has the large white blaze and you can see the difference in size of the Reservoir Pups and the Heli-crew, this might be why the vets thought that Elf was 2 weeks behind Bliss for due date. As it was they both dropped them the same day and Reuben was a busy boy that day 9 weeks ago. This foster plan was very successful

and Elf has taken to the two cuckoos like her own. We now have 15 live healthy pups, 6 boys 9 girls and two healthy mums. All good so far, I did manage to get 2.5 hours sleep but I am on night watch again as the mums still have a habit of lying on the pups so a constant vigil is needed.