LIFE BEGINS NOR PUPPIES
By
Expectant-pet owners who want practical overview rather than a closeup experience such as the Cole/Wexler My Puppy Is Born (1973) will be grateful for Hess' first-person (but not particularly personable) account of her experience with Poco, a Sheltie bitch she rescued from an animal shelter and later discovered to be pregnant. Hess tells how she made a box for Poco's confinement, how breeders tell by temperature when the time is near, and how she stood by during the delivery because though ""most dogs know exactly what to do whan their young are born. . . some have been pampered and bred so that they lost many of their natural Instincts"" and require human help. (Poco didn't, though it took her seven hours to deliver four healthy pups.) Hess mixes in practical details (what she fed the nursing mother), running definitions (whelp, gestation period), and of course lots of photos of the puppies nursing, changing from limp, blind newborn to individual personalities, and finally pairing off with carefully chosen human families.