Sweet 17: Pooch Produces Prodigious Progeny

Hours after giving birth to 17 offspring, Santa Clarita’s busiest mother was nearly fully recovered Thursday, running around town energetically and catching up on missed exercise.

Good thing her owners had a leash.

Bailey, a 1 1/2-year-old golden retriever-Labrador mix, had the unusually large litter over a 10-hour period from Wednesday night to Thursday morning. While short of the world record of 23, the puppy production is extraordinarily high, veterinarians say.

“She just kept on going. She’d break for an hour, have a few puppies, break for a while and then have some more,” said Lillian Shaw of Canyon Country, the dog’s weary owner.

“I’d pet her and she just looked up and went wag, wag.”

Dr. Rachel Bergman, a veterinarian who examined Bailey and her pups Thursday night at Newhall’s Evergreen Animal Hospital, said all appeared to be in excellent health, though “the first couple of weeks will be the critical period.” The puppies weigh about a pound apiece, only slightly less than normal, veterinarians said.

Dan Segna, who consults for the California Veterinary Medicine Assn., said that for a larger breed, Bailey’s output “is not unheard of. But I can’t think of any larger litters that I have seen.”

Dr. Sandy Sanford, who has a private practice in Saugus, said the largest litter he’d seen in 10 years of practicing was 15. The larger the breed, he said, the larger the litter.

The chances of all 17 puppies surviving are far from 100%.

“You have to make sure every one of them is nursing,” Sanford said, noting that female dogs usually have 10 nipples, so some supplemental hand-feeding will probably be necessary.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, litters of 23 have been delivered by American foxhounds, Great Danes and St. Bernards. In such large breeds, as with golden retrievers or Labradors, six to 10 puppies is considered average.

Jim Shaw managed to fit all 18 dogs, his wife, Lillian, and daughters Beth, 7, and Jennifer, 11, into the family’s four-door Honda Accord for the trip to Evergreen, the pups riding in a towel-lined cardboard book box. Inside the hospital, he uncovered the box to reveal the 17 newborns lined up side by side like small ears of corn, sound asleep.

“Now that’s what you call a dog pile,” he said.

Outside, Lillian Shaw said the family plans to keep just one of the offspring of Bailey and her 6-year-old partner, Bartles, another golden retriever-Lab owned by the Shaws.

“We knew this was coming, so we had homes for a lot of them,” she said. “Although by about midnight we ran out of homes.”

Dogs cannot legally be transferred from owner to owner until they are 6 weeks old, she added.

Watching Bailey scamper around the parking lot, Bergman said post-pregnancy recovery is far quicker for dogs than humans.

“She’s back to her normal size,” she said. “And feeling a lot of relief.”