A guide dog has given birth to a record-breaking litter of 16 puppies.
The “treasured” pups are the largest litter the sight-loss charity Guide Dogs has ever had during its 60-year-old breeding programme.
Despite it being Unity’s first pregnancy, her litter is over twice the size of the average for German Shepherd’s and over three times the size of the average litter across all breeds.
While it may have been Unity’s first litter, it is Trigger’s 28th, making him the Guide Dogs’ most prolific stud dog after having fathered 239 puppies.
The current Guinness World Record for the largest litter is 24 puppies, who were born in Cambridgeshire in 2004.
“The pandemic has had a detrimental impact on our charity’s breeding programme and how many litters we can have, so these puppies are even more treasured.”
The sight-loss charity runs the biggest breeding programme of working dogs in the world.
All puppies will spend a week at the Guide Dogs National Centre near Leamington Spa before being individually placed with volunteer puppy raisers around the UK.
