Any day now the Martins will get back their dining room, which has been serving as the nursery for Isabelle and her litter of 11 labradoodle – Goldendoodle – puppies for the past eight weeks.

“It’s been a lot of work,” said Jim Martin Monday when he made another stop at the Beacon to pick up excess newspapers. Jim said he’s actually enjoyed the work even though Isabelle will get him up at two and three in the morning so she can feed the pups and he’s picking up all the mess. To keep up with production of milk, Jim has been feeding Isabelle eight pounds of meat daily. The puppies have grown rapidly with some now weighing more than 12 pounds on their way to 75 pounds.

“We took the dining room, moved out the table and chairs and moved in a pen,” said Jim. The Martins planned on breeding Isabelle with their daughter’s poodle, but never expected such a multitude of offspring. Their granddaughter, Emma Martin, a student at Our Lady Providence School in East Greenwich and Jim were with Isabelle for the birthing that took nearly eight hours.

Emma named them all.

And could she identify them now?

That didn’t prove as difficult Monday as one might imagine as eleven tan and yellow super-charged balls of fur stumbled over one another, played tug of war with a stick and successfully found their way out of a round snow fence enclosure in the Martin’s backyard. Emma easily picked out Rose, the runt of the litter. The others weren’t tough to identify. They all had colored collars with their names.

The Martins have had rescue dogs but Jim notes, “It’s really tough to find puppies in Rhode Island.” Most of the litter has been spoken for. The males are selling for $1,500 and the females for $1,800.

“This is not a puppy mill; this is our family,” he said.

Jim is thinking of another litter in six or eight months. It’s been tough work, but he’s enjoyed it. First, however, he’s going to need to convince his wife, Pat. The puppies have been a lot of work for her, too. She’s been bathing them in the kitchen sink followed by a blow drive, but is she prepared for more, especially if they come in batches of 11?

As for the first thing Jim plans to do once the labra doodle clan has moved out, “I’m going to wash the (dining room) floor.”