Loving Princess Leia

She was barely 2 months old when my boyfriend adopted her. We named her Leia, like the princess. She is a Red Nose Pitbull, white and caramel. I often say she looks like a Cinnamon Roll.

When we are watching TV on the bed, she always jumps in between us and her white hair never leaves your black pants or jackets. She likes to lay next to me, bit with her butt on my face. When I tell her to switch sides, she ignores me, but when I say: DOWN! She immediately turns around and literally hugs me.

Every time we leave the house, she howls and the whole building hears her. “Your dog cried all day,” said a note we found under the door one time we left her for 2 hours.

She is way too needy, she doesn’t know how to be alone, but she is the reason my boyfriend’s happier than ever.

When she turned 3 years old we found a male Pitbull for her named Draco, whose head's like 3 times bigger than Leia’s. A few weeks later, the vet confirmed Leia was pregnant. Her belly got bigger and bigger and 10 days before the birth date, the vet said she would have 4 puppies, 5 if we were lucky.

Her water broke on a Saturday at 3pm while we were sitting at our dinner table. We sat on the floor, ready to help her, but she was the most experienced mother I had ever seen. She didn't seem to be in pain, she was in control, looking at us like saying: I trust you guys.

The first puppy came, it was a girl and Leia took care of everything. The new mom relentlessly cleaned the baby, fed her, and kept her warm while preparing for the next one. We received the second, third and fourth puppy. Leia kept on doing her job perfectly and we were just watching her, amazed by nature, by the idea that she realized that she was a mother at that moment and yet, she was totally ready for it.

Then, the fifth baby came out and we were so happy. But Leia kept on breathing fast and cleaning the area for more babies. So it continued with the sixth, seventh, eighth. We couldn't believe there were so many. And it wasn’t over…Leia had 11 puppies. E L E V E N. Not even in our wildest dreams we thought we were going to take care of 11 Pitbulls: 3 boys and 8 girls.

Leia spent the week after giving birth in her bed with her babies, she didn’t even move to let us know she wanted to go to pee or poop. We had to force her to do it. She would run to the park, peed for 3 minutes, pooped right after and then hurried us to go back home. Sometimes, it seemed to me that she was counting her babies when she returned from her quick walks, because she looked at them, touched them with her paw, her tongue.

From that day, it was like having a human baby. We took turns to watch over the puppies, to verify all of them were alive and breastfed. Some nights Leia cried very loud, and when we entered the room, we would find one of the babies turned over and ended far from the bed. Leia, who was unable to move because they were too many, cried so that we could help her carry the puppy right back next to her.

She always let us touch the puppies. When family visited, she would welcome them, wagging her tail and walking them to the babies room.

The next 2 months were complete chaos. Some days we would found Leia hiding inside the closet, sitting there in the dark, resting I guess.

Writing this I came to realize, it was one of the most incredible experiences I had. Not only did I learn from her, but it showed me that I couldn’t deny I’m loving Princess Leia more than ever.