Ramona Wegemann‘s life was turned upside down after her purebred Rhodesian Ridgeback, Etana, gave birth to a litter of 17 puppies in September!
When so many puppies are born, some usually die, but Wegemann miraculously struggled for about 4 weeks to make sure all the puppies survived.
We can only imagine how exhausting that must have been!
She fed the puppies at least 5 times a day with a bottle of special milk since their mothers nipples could never have handled the demand. When she was “finished feeding the last puppy, the first was hungry again.”
The litter is comprised of 8 females and 9 males, all given African names because the Rhodesian Ridgeback is an African hunting dog.
The females puppies are called Bahati, Binta, Bahya, Bashima, Batouuli, Binki, Bora, Bisa and the male ones are Baakir, Banjoku, Belay, Bruk, Bundu, Bayo, Bukekayo, Biton and Bulus.
That’s A LOT of B’s! We’re curious how can she even managed to tell them all apart.
Wegemann hopes to sell each pup off to a loving family, not a breeder, for about $1,315 since $1,050 per puppy would only cover the expenses for the veterinary, vaccinations, food and the mandatory paperwork.
Considering the woman and her husband had to take off a considerable amount of time from work in order to care for the 17 pups, we’d say she deserves every penny!
So far she has sold 6, but has 11 to go. Good luck, Ramona!
[Image via AP Images.]
