Guide dog puppies are a litter bit special

But they have been chosen to do an important job as they will be trained to become guide dogs supporting the blind.

Remarkably they are the third large litter produced by five-year-old Willow who is now mother to 36 puppies.

Her proud owners Tony and Margaret Creed held a 'puppy party' to celebrate the latest influx and neighbouring youngsters couldn't wait to play with the little bundles of fur.

Tony said Willow will now be retired and enjoy a well deserved rest.

He added: "Willow had them all in just two and a half hours, which is very good. When she had her last litter it was 14 puppies over 12 hours.

"There were no problems, no visits to the vets. It was a wonderful litter.

"She took care of them all on her own really. The main problem is they only can only feed from about 10 teats and there was 12 of them so we had to make sure that even the little ones got their fair share.

"The easiest way to do that was in shifts and have six to her at one time."

All of the puppies - of which there are nine girls and three boys - have been named after the letter U, which Tony said was actually quite a challenge, with names including Uri and Uma.

Each litter of guide dog puppies is named alphabetically.

They have now gone to the Guide Dogs' National Breeding Centre in Royal Leamington Spa.

From there the puppies will be sent to puppy walkers and for the first 12 months of a guide dog's life, they live with their puppy walker who gets them used to every day life. When they are a year old they will go back to the breeding centre for more training and are then matched to a blind person waiting for a guide dog.

Tony and Margaret have raised £470 in aid of the Guide Dogs charity by hosting their puppy party and are urging others to help the organisation which relies on public donations.

Visit www.guidedogs.org.uk for more information or to sign up to walk puppies.

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