BERLIN — A dog in Germany has given birth to 17 puppies, leaving their owner thrilled but fatigued after having to feed them with a bottle for several weeks because their mother couldn’t cope with the demand.
Owner Ramona Wegemann said Monday that she barely slept for more than a couple of minutes without interruption over about four weeks in an “exhausting” struggle to make sure all of the purebred Rhodesian Ridgeback puppies would survive.
She said when she was “finished feeding the last puppy, the first was hungry again.”
Wegemann’s dog, Etana, gave birth to eight female and nine male puppies on Sept. 28 in Ebereschenhof, which is near Berlin.
But caring for 17 puppies turned out to be a full-time job: Wegemann put her work as an independent animal psychiatrist on a hold, and her husband took as much vacation as he could.
The Associated Press; AP photo
