Oh Yeah, You Blend

This is why you do this though. Happy mom, happy puppies. Everybody back home and safe.

Whelping puppies is about my least favorite thing about breeding dogs, it’s stressful as hell. And anyone who tells you that they love whelping likely simply hasn’t bred much or has had extremely good luck. It’s true that 90% of the time everything goes well, but when it doesn’t, you’d rather be doing anything else. You feel horribly responsible (because you are), and it’s a weighty burden.

So as you know Bob, if you read this blog, Zhora started with stage 1 labor yesterday. All fine. Our friend Nicole came over to be a newbie whelper helper (this was a heck of a litter for THAT as it turned out).

Zhora gradually progressed as the afternoon wore on, and started strong contractions and pushing in the evening. Administered injectable calcium per our repro vet (the amazing Dr Claudia Gray at Alliance Animal Hospital). All according to plan. First puppy just wasn’t coming. Eventually I pushed back Zhora’s vulva a bit (this is the glamour of dog breeding) and saw a foot. I was pretty sure it was a back foot (which is fine, about 40% of puppies are born tail first, the main things to be concerned about is that the puppy is in a “diving” position (legs extended, facing down), and not with its legs tucked under or on its back). But I could only find one foot and I was worried the puppy’s other back leg was tucked under, so I “wheelbarrowed” Zhora (walked her around with her back legs in the air to let the puppy slip back up a ways and hopefully reposition a bit). I also called Dr Gray in there somewhere to make sure this sounded OK to her (in literally the middle of the night). Then as the puppy started to work its way out (or rather as Zhora started to work her out), I grabbed the back feet with a facecloth and just gently pulled down with her contractions (you almost never want to just pull it out, you can really hurt the bitch or the puppy, the main thing is to stop the puppy getting sucked back in between contractions so the bitch can gain ground with each contraction). After that, the puppy came out reasonably easily. She had a lot of mucus and I suctioned her well with my Delee catheter. After she was out Zhora was like my friend Lynn’s proverbial “salad shooter”, and the next three puppies (all males) came in quite quick succession.

And then nothing but occasional hard contractions. For four hours. That’s the maximum time my vet wanted to see between puppies if there were contractions. So I called again. I could feel the one remaining puppy still quite high up. Dr Gray walked me through a few things to try (small doses of oxytocin IM, “feathering”, etc.), nothing worked. I called back, she said she’d meet me at the clinic.

Once there, we started Zhora on IV (she was quite tired by then), did a quick ultrasound to be sure the puppy was still alive (it was, and with a good heart rate), and tried a few medical interventions (more calcium, more oxytocin, poor Dr Gray getting covered with poop trying to manually get the puppy out). Nothing worked. We checked the puppy again and its heart rate was dropping so we decided we needed to go to section and that there wasn’t much time.

Well thank goodness for well-educated, well-prepared and knowledgeable people!  Zhora was pre-oxygenated by mask (she didn’t like that), and then anesthetized and whisked into surgery. I was invited in to watch. Dr Gray got the puppy out and handed her to Renee, her tech, who pulled out ALL the stops. She had a warming mat and warm air blower running, she used epinephrine and dopram to stimulate breathing, she used the acupuncture needle spot on the front of the muzzle, she used subcutaneous fluids, and she suctioned and rubbed and pinched and pissed that puppy off until she woke up and got breathing well. It sounds mean, but when a puppy is first getting breathing it’s very hard work for the puppy and especially if they’ve had some anesthesia in a section they can be quite slow to get going. But they will die if they don’t breathe, obviously, so you want to make them ANGRY and squealing. That’s a sign they’re breathing well enough. We made sure she got to nurse from Zhora alone so she got some colostrum.

We then sat with Zhora (who was up and around, admittedly like a drunk arguing a DWI), let everybody nurse one more time, and then headed back home. Over 24 hours without sleep and a gallon of stress. But so far, so good.

Zhora shortly after waking up from her c-section, nursing puppies outside the operating room. Note the artistic tail-brush painting on the wall behind her in blood (normal post-whelp discharge) and poop. It’s a glamorous business!

What Dr Gray thinks happened is that a placenta was left behind and it blocked the puppy’s exit. Her sack had broken so she was dry, so that combination of physical blockade and lack of lubrication meant she just couldn’t get out.

Finally she lay down to sleep (after I made her). If you look closely, you can see a puppy lying ON her back foot to nurse.

I decided to use the makeup sponge method to top up the c-section girl as she had a rough start. I will probably hand feed a meal every day to everyone, I’ve done this in the past at my friend Diane’s suggestion, since it helps with associating people with good things early on. I made a batch of Myra’s puppy formula last weekend and I am glad I did!