Spare a thought for Crowlands' Tracey Salter and her female greyhound Eminence (known at home as Tiggy), who has just graced the world with a litter that may very well be a record: 15 pups - seven girls and eight boys - and all survived.

And Salter's not holding back with her excitement.

"People keep telling me it's a record!," she said.

"It was a really difficult process. The vet's amazed Tiggy made it through. She had kidney failure as well, and spent five days in ICU, but she's home now. She's lost a lot of weight, but she's on the mend.

"She's not strong enough to look after her babies. It's a shame, because she's really starting to look for them. They're with a lady who has two dogs and they're rearing and feeding them. I'm really lucky in that sense."

The pups are being looked after by an unlikely pair.

The two dogs taking over duties are Penny (raced as Thriller Love) who provides the feed for the litter (and seven pups of her own), while other duties are taken on by Ally, a Scottish Terrier. Just when the story can't get stranger, surrogate mum Penny is also a half-sister to the litter's sire, Moriera.

"Nobody knew. There was just no inkling at all that there was 15. She looked like she was having about eight. The only thing I noticed was that Tiggy was very quiet through this pregnancy. She didn't want to run around or anything, and she wouldn't eat anything raw, was the other strange thing," Salter said.