Apparently, both of Mabel's daughters (born 2020) were pregnant.
After living together since birth, they started out the season sharing the backyard woodpile https://pbase.com/britestar/image/173447323 However this year, they soon started to have repeat disputes as to who was going to continue to live there. The sister (running away in the link) was the one who eventually won the rights to stay in their childhood home.
When I took a photo of the smaller pregnant sister (who had been banished to the stream) https://pbase.com/britestar/image/173602570, I had no idea that the other sister was also pregnant. After repeatedly chasing her littermate off, that girl also disappeared for a while. At some point, she had then moved from the woodpile (away from the house) to "setting up house" under our deck. Bella alerted us to her new presence.
Suddenly this afternoon, the above cutie hesitantly peeked up from under the edge of the deck before quickly darting back under. I watched for a while, and he then came out a little further. He went back and forth several times before a second pup tentatively also peeked out. Although the second pup never fully came out, the first one came the whole way out and sat up to look around at the world new to him. He's soooo cute.
I remember his mother at the same age https://pbase.com/britestar/image/170715270
back when Mabel first started to bring her babies around to our front porch.
It's going to be fun watching these new pups grow up.
As for the other pregnant sister, she seems to have disappeared. She obviously has relocated to have her babies where I can no longer see her nor them. When I last saw her, she was pretty big and looked like she would probably have a large litter. Mabel had a litter of 7 back when she had the two females who have now given birth this Spring.
The cycle of life continues.
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