Dog gives birth naturally to enormous litter of NINETEEN puppies
A dog in Russia has given birth to 19 puppies.
Kira, a two-year-old Cane Corso, also known as an Italian Mastiff, gave birth to all of her puppies naturally at home.
Owner Natalia Mukhomedeeva, and her husband Albert are helping their pet dog look after her puppies after she gave birth and even helping Kira to feed her huge litter.
Their home, in the town of Ramon in south-western Russia’s Voronezh Oblast region, is now completely overrun with cute little grey puppies.
Kira’s amazing litter matches that of another dog, Cleo, a Great Dane, which made headlines recently after having 19 puppies in the US city of Kingman, Arizona.
But while Cleo’s litter was born by Caesarian section at an animal hospital, Kira have birth to her puppies naturally.
Natalia came home from work to find Kira in labour and ended up staying up with her until morning when the last of the puppies arrived.
Cane Corsos normally have litters of four to six puppies.
‘Kira’s first puppy appeared in the late afternoon, and then they began to come all night until five in the morning.’ said Natalia.
‘We thought, well, there’ll be three puppies, then, a maximum of six… for us, it was a mad night. But Kira did it herself, she did not need help.’
One of the pups was stillborn but the rest have been checked over and pronounced fit and well by a local vet, Vera Schtetina.
She said: ‘In my 36 years of experience, I’ve never seen a case like this. Usually the biggest litter a large dog will have is nine or 10 puppies.’
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Natalia had to take time off work and set up a special feeding station for the puppies as Kira did not have enough milk to feed them all.
And she and Albert have come up with names – all starting with the letter ‘M’ – for all 18 surviving puppies, including Markisa, Max and Maverick.
It was the first litter for both for Kira and the father, another Cane Corso, named Pharaoh.
Pharaoh’s owner Andrey Rezov said: ‘They fell in love at first sight. Pharaoh is also very friendly like Kira. He is well-behaved, and has passed a dog training exam.’
The largest known litter of puppies for any dog was 24, to Tia, a Neopolitan mastiff, in the Cambridgeshire village of Manea in 2004.