To have one Christmas Day baby in a lifetime is something of a feat but to have ten all on the same day can only be said to be a Christmas miracle.

However, this Penryn mother is not of the human variety but chocolate Labrador Honey Tigerlily - known as Lily.

Lily began giving birth just as her owner, Tracey Laity, was putting Christmas dinner on the table of the home she shares with her husband Kevin and their children.

Tracey, from Lanoweth at Packsaddle, said: "She could have picked a better time! Just as I put the lunch on the table my son Nathan shouted, 'I think I see a puppy.' We just left the dinner and that was that. At a quarter past one the first one was born - we were there until eight that night. But I didn't matter - it made my Christmas really."

Tracey and Kevin's three-year-old grandson Logan was particularly enamoured and spent most of the time sitting with Lily while she had the puppies.

This is the first litter of puppies for three and half-year-old Lily, who has performed a second feat by having ten puppies the first time - something almost unheard of.

"We took her to the vet a few days before and she said she could have five. After puppy number five was born we thought we'd let her out in the garden, because we thought that was it. Then she had one under the clothes line and it was panic stations," explained Tracey.

Fathering the puppies were the family's 18-month-old Labrador Barney - nicknamed Scooby Doo by Kevin.

In-keeping with the Christmas theme, the pups have been given festive names, with the seven boys named after Santa's reindeers and the three girls named Holly, Ivy and Mistletoe - although this is just so they can be registered with the Kennel Club as pedigree Labradors.

The plan is to sell the puppies when they are around eight weeks old, with three promised to people already - although the family will probably keep one of them - and Tracey stressed that the new owners could choose whatever name they wished.

And while having ten puppies to care for could faze some people, these pups have fitted right into the Laity household "menagerie" - the family also has three cats, two birds, ducks, guinea pigs, a rabbit and a fish.