At 6:00 am on October 15, 2017 Norm left Cocoa in the kitchen to take care of stuff. At about 6:30 in the morning, Norm returned to the kitchen to discover that Cocoa had company, in the form of a new puppy - a yellow male who is the spitting image of Benelli. We don't know exactly what time he was born, but by the time Norm walked into the kitchen, Cocoa already had him cleaned up. We quickly moved Cocoa from the kitchen to the whelping box that had been prepared for her and her puppies. At 6:52 am, a second puppy was born. It was black, but sadly, it was stillborn. At 7:36 am puppy number three made his appearance. This was another black, and it was a male. Just 4 minutes later, at 7:40 am puppy #4 came zipping into the world. This little guy earned the puppy name of "Wiggler", and he is the most active of the bunch. At first he was so dark, we thought he was a chocolate, but after he was cleaned up it became apparent that it was another yellow male. At 8:39 am the first chocolate showed up - another male! Four live births and four boys! At 9:14 am our first girl was born - and this one was a chocolate! At 10:50 am another chocolate boy arrived. Then at 11:37 another much smaller black male put in an appearance. We started to think that things were slowing down and maybe Cocoa was done, but at 12:35 pm another yellow male was born. This was the ninth puppy, and given that this was Cocoa's first (and probably only) litter, it was reasonable to think that the job was done. We were busy taking care of Cocoa - making sure she had water and food when she needed it and that she was nursing the puppies. Most of the information we had read indicated that there could be as much as 2 to 4 hours between puppies, so as 3:00 pm rolled around, we expected that all of the puppies were born. Seven minutes later, we were proved wrong when puppy number 10 arrived. This one was a yellow, and just the second female of the bunch. Again, we were taking care of Cocoa; making sure she had food and water, made a trip outside to take care of business, and as we rolled past the 7:00 pm, we thought the job was done. In exhaustion, we headed upstairs to call it a night, and leave Cocoa to take care of her puppies.
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