When Ilana Broad first took in Cheesecake as a foster, the dog appeared to be very young and very shy. She’d been found as a stray in Oklahoma and flown to Denver through A Friend of Jack, and when she arrived, she went straight from the plane to her foster home. Not much was known about Cheesecake at that point, but her new family was just focused on getting her settled in.

“At that stage, our goal is really just to make sure the new foster settles in OK, eats food and starts filling out and gaining weight, and can get some rest,” Broad told The Dodo.

About two weeks after she arrived, though, Broad started noticing signs that Cheesecake might be hiding something very important.

“I realized she was showing some early pregnancy signs,” Broad said. “I asked the women at A Friend of Jack if they had been told she was pregnant, and they said there was no indication that she was, but that I should take her to the vet for a quick scan. We went to the closest vet, and they said there were no visible puppies in any imaging.”

Everyone was convinced that Cheesecake was “definitely not pregnant.” Broad took her home and continued to keep an eye on her. Instead of the signs going away, the little dog’s belly grew and grew until, finally, Broad was convinced that everyone was wrong.

Broad had a gut feeling that Cheesecake was pregnant but assumed it was probably in the early stages since the scans before hadn’t shown anything. They went back to the vet — and everyone was shocked to discover that Cheesecake was just days away from giving birth to a whole bunch of puppies.

“The imaging showed so many puppies that we couldn’t even be sure how many there were,” Broad said. “One vet said nine, another said ten, and we all just laughed about how bonkers that imaging was!”

About a week later, Cheesecake went into labor, and Broad helped her give birth to nine healthy puppies. They decided to name them after flavors of cheesecake and went with Blueberry, Cocoa, Fudge, Mocha, Oreo, Pumpkin, Strawberry, Turtle and Vanilla Bean.

Everyone had been so convinced that Cheesecake wasn’t pregnant, and then, out of nowhere, she was the proud mama of nine little pups.

Right after giving birth, Cheesecake became incredibly sick and wasn’t able to nurse her puppies, so Broad and their partner bottle-fed all nine of them. It was so much work but so worth it, and at the end of it all, they decided there was no way they could say goodbye to Cheesecake and officially adopted her.

Today, all of the puppies have found loving homes and Cheesecake is living her best life. She has no more secrets, just love, and everyone is so glad that she got her perfect happy ending.