Towards the end of March, we took Long Tall Sally of Alika Cotons south to Pennys From Heaven Cotons to meet and mate with Carol Cassano's Yankee Boy of Crabapple Crossings. Here's Yankee looking rather pleased with himself in his jaunty puppy cut and with his tail doing a bit of post-coital tail wagging...

After the usual two months of pregnancy, we took Sally to Cornell University where she gave birth (via C-section) to five beautiful babies. The C-section was necessary because the pups were very large at birth (which, by the way, does not portend large adults or even large puppies as they develop).

One of the pups (Maya, who you will see shortly) was slow to nurse, so Laurie fed her for several days, but Maya quickly mastered the technique of nursing on Sally and her development and those of everyone else continued without incident.

By six weeks of age, all the pups had their eponymous names and first portraits. To see them, click on their name below:

1. Virginia Woof

2. Maya Angepoo

3. Robert Louis Sallyson

4. Kurt Notamutt

5. Jane Pawsten