Pet Sitter Told Pregnant Dog Won’t Go into Labor During Stay, Delivers 14 Puppies

A woman who offered to pet sit for her brother got quite a surprise addition to her workload — a litter of 14 puppies!

U.K. woman Rhian Boxall agreed to watch her brother’s pregnant Labrador retriever, Tilly, while he was away on vacation. Although she knew the canine was pregnant, she didn’t think the pet would give birth under her watchful eye, according to BBC and ITV News.

In fact, when Boxall agreed to watch the Tilly for the dates several months earlier, the dog hadn’t even been pregnant, she told the BBC. A scan later on revealed that the canine was carrying a litter of pups, estimated to be about seven dogs altogether, and would give birth around Sept. 3, per the outlet.

Boxall still agreed to care for Tilly after her pregnancy announcement and after her brother assured her the dog was not due to give birth during his vacation. The sitter ended up with a surprise when Tilly gave birth one week earlier than expected to 14 puppies, not the expected six to eight.

“We thought a few times that that was it, especially considering it was meant to be five or six, but it wasn’t. Quite overwhelming really, at one point we lost count!” Boxall told ITV News about the long delivery.

She told BBC that she — along with her husband Steve, 48, and their two children Nia, 7, and William, 10 — experienced a “rollercoaster of emotions” as the 14 puppies arrived over the course of 15 hours.

Boxall noted that two of the puppies did not survive, but the 12 that did all received different colored collars to help tell them apart.

“I was shocked,” Tilly’s owner, Meirion Thomas, told the BBC of his reaction to finding out his dog had gone into labor while his sister was watching her. “It was so frustrating being stuck all those miles away.”

Thomas added that as soon as he received the news, he flew back from the Canary Islands, where he had been on vacation with his wife, Tracey, and their three foster children, and collected Tilly and the puppies from his sister’s home hours after they were born. 

Boxall told ITV News that she and her family are thinking about adopting one of Tilly’s pups, since they helped welcome them into the world.

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“We’ve thought for many years about having a dog, and really, the kids are keen, I think going through this experience and falling in love with the pups, we just have to,” she told the outlet.

As for Thomas, he jokingly noted, “Hopefully I can return the favour of dog sitting, although hopefully not a pregnant one!”

While Tilly gave birth to a large litter of puppies, it isn’t the largest on record in the U.K. The Guinness World Record for most puppies in one litter belongs to Tia, a Neapolitan mastiff who gave birth to 24 puppies on Nov. 29, 2004, in Manea, U.K.