Anyone who’s been through childbirth will know just how challenging it is. Giving birth to one child is exhausting enough – and let’s not even talk about twins.

Luckily for us humans, we only tend to give birth in ones and twos, and occasionally threes. Animals have it a lot worse off than us. The average dog litter size is around five to six pups, while the average cat litter is three to five kittens.

But every so often, just as humans can give birth to five or more babies, animals can give birth to double the expected litter size. It’s not unheard of for dogs to give birth to litters of 10 pups, though, of course, it’s still fairly rare.

The current national Australian record for the biggest dog litter comes in at 19. This year, one incredible momma beat that by 2, giving birth to 21 pups – not that her owners had any idea of her litter size.

Let’s go right back to the beginning, when Shadow, a Neapolitan mastiff from Australia, reached the end of her pregnancy. She gave birth to three of her pups at home, and all seemed to be going well. But then the hours passed by… and passed… and passed… and no new pups were arriving on the scene.

After four hours, Shadow’s human mom became concerned, and took her to the vets. It was here at Underwood Hospital that Shadow was scanned and tested to make sure she was safe and well.

Dr. Patrycja Zimmermann, the vet who treated Shadow, said:

“We took radiographs straight after Shadow’s arrival to see if any more puppies were on the way and made the amazing discovery of 10 plus puppies inside. We quickly checked the fetal heartbeats, and were praying for the best outcome for her.”

It was arranged for Shadow to have an emergency C-section to give her pups a better chance of survival. 10 vets in total were on hand to perform the procedure, and while three pups unfortunately did not survive, the other 18 were happy and healthy.

In Australia, two dogs used to share the record of having the highest number of pups given birth at one time – Melody, a Dalmatian in Albury, and Minnie, an American bulldog. Both of these dogs birthed 19 pups each. A pretty impressive total – until Shadow came along and snatched the title off them!

Shadow hasn’t quite beat the Guinness world record holder for the category, though the holder is actually another Neapolitan mastiff. This incredible momma, named Tia, gave birth to a whopping 24 puppies in 2004.

We can only imagine how it must feel to be responsible for 24 births. It suddenly makes childbirth as a human seem much more manageable!

It’s thought that the size of Neapolitan mastiffs may be a factor in why this breed tends to have bigger litters. They’re physically larger and stronger, which means they can bear more pups per litter than smaller, weaker dog breeds.

But even with her larger size, Shadow wouldn’t have felt the most comfortable carrying around 21 little pups. She was probably incredibly relieved to have given birth, and we’re glad that she and 18 of her pups were healthy as can be following the ordeal.

You can check out the full story, including an interview with Shadow’s owner, in the video below.

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Source: Animal Emergency Service Center, Wikipedia, Global News