Congratulations on your litter. Very nice size and distribution of genders. I'm looking forward to Mariah's litter in just over 2 weeks from now.
Tracy and Mariah
Long ago Angie Monteleon told me that whelping puppies was like waiting for Christmas to come. "You watch the tree as it lights up."
"Then when each puppy is delivered its like opening each individual Christmas present."
When I came home I kept asking her, "Is pregnant?" She kept having to go outside, eat grass, and puke during the night. Then she began to want to suck again. So she actually bit a mouth pattern into my good flannel Moose Sheets. I had broke the sucking habit. But she was feeling strange and started that up again.
Later as she lay in bed with me, she would act like, "Stop moving the bed mom." But it was the puppies moving around. She was getting mad at me for not letting her rest.
She had a very short labor. She slept in her crate the night before. I got tired of being blamed for her inability to get confortable. (ha) So I let her out in the morning as usual; but I saw her trying to take a poop, but no poop. I brought her right in and her water broke. I put her immediately into the whelping box and here came the big red male. I was in slippers and nightgown. All the plans I had just went out the window. I dressed between pups in the kitchen.
The rest is history.
There actually were 10 pups. Two did not make it out alive. So there was also a black dog and a red dog that just didn't make it. She kept contracting but they had died and didn't cooporate in coming out. So the next day she surprised me with two more but dead. The vet seems to think her litter was so big that the uterus folded over and thus they didn't make it. He is a specialist vet so I believe him. He says anytime you go over 8 pups you are in some risk as there really is not enough room.
Looking back one night she was so uncomfortable, I thought of taking her in because she almost couldn't breath. All her room was taken up. So I wonder if I had gotten the assistance of oxygen what would have been. Oh well, each time we do this we learn something.
P.S. Her house crate is a huge oversized crate
