Pups arrived, just in time for polar night

“I think she’s starting to push!” Sean relayed over the walkie talkie.



A few miles from home, I guided my dog team to take a hard right turn. Winding through the black spruce forest, deflecting willow branches from slapping my face, I smiled to myself: They’re finally here.



We’d been hyped to witness the birth of these puppies for many weeks now — luckily a dog’s gestation is only about 64 days... and not nine months, so we didn’t have that long to wait.


Those of you who’ve been in the Arctic Hive orbit for a while may remember we’ve had newborn puppies before... er, ONE puppy back in April. We’d gotten three new 2yo sled dogs, and three days in, I discovered that Yara had (surprise!) given birth overnight. We thought she seemed a little chubby, but didn’t realize she was pregnant!


Side note: The dad wasn’t any of our dogs, as we’d only had her three days — and he remains a mystery to this day.


Eclipse just turned 8 months old, and is loving life with her big brothers and sisters, especially when she gets to go for a mush! She’s a natural — as we expected she’d be.

As I was hooking up the dogs in the yard after returning home, Sean beamed over the radio again: “I think the first puppy is comi— oh! The first puppy is here!”



I hustled to de-harness and hook up the rest of the team, and ran up the hill to the house, just in time to hear that puppy #2 was out as well... just 12 minutes after the first.



Inside, Sean told me what we’d read so much about: He hadn’t done much.



Humans don’t have to do much for dogs during birth — there’s not much of a “delivery” process for anyone except the momma. We had lots of tools on hand to assist if needed, but it’s a lot of recording of times, making notes of markings to tell them apart, and adjusting the whelping box and towels to keep momma as comfortable as possible.

Mom’s instincts kicked in — as she’s done before, and after a pup is out, she tears away the fetal sack around the puppy and essentially licks the newborn to bring it to life — breathing, it’s immune system, awareness, etc. They latch on to her nipples pretty quickly after that, and then it’s a waiting game to determine if there are more puppies, or not.


The third pup arrived about 25 minutes after the second, and his coloring was much more brown than the large black/white male (1st puppy) and smaller black/white female (2nd puppy).



We don’t have official names picked out yet, but we are considering “Polar Night” as a theme for the litter. They were born on November 30th — the first day of Polar Night for the village of Wiseman.


Here was last night’s weigh-in. We handled the pups just after a feed — so they were more than happy to sleep right through it!


Below is the firstborn male — he has always been nearly double the size of his sister, and he has got quite the set of pipes on him:

Below is the tiny female — the smallest of the three, born at just 13 ounces!

Below is the third pup, a male —  bigger than the little girl and with brown markings instead of black.

While momma stays in the house and cares for her three sweet pups, we’ve been out mushing, trail breaking, firewood chopping and general winter chore-ing as we prepare for the arrival of Winter’s Womb guests on December 17th.



This time of relative calm at Arctic Hive is one of my favorites… with lots of space to dream, chill, and stay up late to see the Aurora dance in the sky.



Life is good here — wishing you the same for you and yours.



Sending love,
Mollie