Oh Yeah, You Blend

Every breeder has what they call “the litter from hell” at some point (hopefully only one….)…

Littlest puppy Popcorn was maintaining the weight she was at after her initial loss (150 grams), but not gaining anything (Zhora’s milk is good because all the other puppies are gaining well). So I decided to pull out all the stops. I am worried about her, I won’t lie, but she’s not going anywhere without a fight so…I am tube feeding her every 3-4 hours (she is nursing well, but I think she’s burning most of the calories she’s getting just by nursing), I am giving her warmed subcutaneous fluids any time I think she’s a little dehydrated (dehydration can kill a neonatal puppy fast), I am giving her Nutri Drops. I got up to feed her overnight too (I am getting pretty good at tube feeding, so that’s a plus). She’s up to 163 grams and hasn’t lost anything between her feeding overnight and this morning, I am calling that a small victory. She doesn’t like the tube feeding but it gets the formula where it needs to be without her having to expend any energy eating it. She is nice and warm (cold puppies can’t digest) and quite spunky and active.

In addition, poor Zhora was vomiting and had diarrhea. She doesn’t have a fever at least. I am used to a bit of diarrhea after whelping, but the vomiting was making me nervous. Spoke to the awesome Dr Gray again this morning and started Zofran (which is safe for nursing moms) for the nausea/vomiting and metronidazole, which is not normally recommended for nursing dogs but the diarrhea is bad. We will use as little as possible for as short a time as possible to get the diarrhea under control. I cooked her some chicken and rice, and she ate a bowl of it. I also got her some calcium citrate to give in addition to the other calcium, because it can be absorbed without food. It’s not impossible that she has retained a bit of placenta, but Dr Gray thinks it’s unlikely.

Sleep is for the weak.

Everybody did well overnight. Zhora has the usual post-whelp diarrhea (partly hormones, partly eating placentas, I’m sure also partly stress, she worked very hard yesterday and this is all new to her) so I catnapped rather than slept so I could keep an eye on the puppies and Zhora and be sure to let her out as often as she wanted.

Popcorn (the littlest girl born by c-section, named Popcorn by Dr Gray because someone burned popcorn and you could smell it everywhere while we were there yesterday) lost some weight overnight. Not abnormal in the first 24 hours, but she’s little, so I decided to top her up with formula. She was nursing very well from the makeup sponge but I had a hard time figuring out how much was actually getting into her as her weight really wasn’t changing much. So I decided to tube feed to be sure she was getting enough. Now she’s active and energetic and a very vigorous nurser, holds on to the nipple tight and fends off her bigger siblings if they try to muscle in. I do with her what I’ve always done for the smaller puppies – let one of the big puppies get an inguinal teat going, and then pull that puppy off the teat, move them to another, and put the little puppy on it. The inguinal teats (the ones closest to the mother’s hind legs) seem to let milk down faster and easier, and are less work for the puppy than some of the others, at least that’s how it seems to me. So she’s getting lots of time nursing, but nursing burns calories and I want her calories to go to making more Popcorn. So I’m going to tube feed her three times a day to supplement her nursing (Dr Gray suggested three times a day to start). I also keep in mind that the other puppies had a good 6 + hour head start on nursing, so it’s not surprising that they all gained well and are fat, round-bellied beanbags. Puppies can go downhill fast, so I am a firm believer in taking all reasonable action early if it’s a “can’t hurt/might help” sort of thing. I’m also using Nutri Drops from Revival – each puppy is getting at least one dose.

Every litter teaches you something! This one’s taught me about c-sections and tube feeding. And that’s just in the first 36 hours!

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!

Zhora had her last dose of Regumate on Monday at 5 pm. She was a bit more restless and clingy last night, and then this morning she started a bit of digging. The digging and panting has increased as the day has gone on, and I’m pretty comfortable thinking she’s in stage 1 labor now. Stage 1 labor in dogs is when the dog is having contractions, they are dilating and effacing the cervix, and they dig and pant and usually don’t eat. Zhora ate her breakfast this morning, but slowly, and she refused her lunch. Zhora hasn’t ever voluntarily missed a meal in her life, so this is significant! She acts hungry and even goes to the food bin, but when offered food she either takes it and spits it out, or simply doesn’t take it at all. Her body is saving its energy for labor, not digestion. Since stage 1 labor can last 24 hours and sometimes even longer, this is the “hurry up and wait” stage of whelping.

The neat and tidy whelping box with Game of Thrones (of course!) throw to make a cave.

Earlier today.

Those pads were neatly laid out before the digging started…

Even when you’re about to become a mum yourself, your mum is still your mum. Love that Nina.

Love you Zhora!

Massive pile of clean laundry. Towels, bedding, facecloths etc. Unpacked the supplies bin, washed everything in unscented detergent, folded. Ready to go.

Made a batch of liver water (OMG my whole house smells like boiled liver). Then made a batch of Myra Savant Harris’s puppy formula. Froze the leftover liver water and the formula in ice cube trays. All now in labeled Ziploc bags in the freezer. Better to be prepared. Plus Zhora can drink it!

I will make Zhora some mother’s porridge (steel cut oats, goat’s milk, eggs and other stuff) to help support her lactation once everybody has arrived.

Tomorrow night is her last dose of Regumate. Then we wait. I plan to be prepared from Tuesday night on (it takes a while for the Regumate to leave her system, most of what I can find says 36 hours at least before anything gets going but you never know). I will go to work Wednesday morning, Jim will stay here and call me if it looks like anything is imminent.

As of today, they are officially cooked enough to be likely to survive even if they’re born early (and remember “normal” is 63 days from ovulation plus or minus a day, which puts us Wednesday-Friday).

As much as I love planning breedings and raising puppies, I am not a fan of whelping. Even though 90% go just fine with no intervention at all (and how many dogs whelp in back alleys and do ok?), and there’s all that miracle of life stuff that really is amazing, it’s always stressful until everyone is out, and really until everyone is a few weeks old, to be honest.

I do feel much better with a repro vet on call. And I’ve reviewed my books and feel about as prepared as I can be. After tomorrow evening, it’s up to Zhora.

Doctor Gray’s count via ultrasound at 28 days was bang on the money! Five on x-ray today (our original x-ray appointment was tomorrow but we were there for ultrasound today so did the x-ray a day early). On ultrasound we saw hearts beating over 200 beats per minute (which is what you want), on at least three of them. I was asked about why only 3, and the answer was that Zhora was being a pill about lying on her back with a big pregnant belly (and also because she has Opinions), so we didn’t want to wrestle with her and stress her out. Because all 5 are quite uniform in size, we were pretty comfortable just spot checking.

One is lined up ready to go! All a nice uniform size at this point (we’re calling the 21st her likely due date).

Here’s the email I sent to Renee and Dr Gray today, and I’ll put Dr Gray’s answers at our appointment today in bold (as best I remember them):

Patting puppies that are still in the womb is pretty cool.

They are quite active tonight and they’re making Zhora a bit uncomfortable.

We’re going for an ultrasound tomorrow just to make sure everything is ok in there. I can feel quite a lot of kicking and squirming.

So progesterone was 5.4 again this morning. Not lower, which is good, but not higher, so presumably yesterday’s number was real and not a fluctuation.

So we are starting Regumate, which is a synthetic progesterone that they use in horses. It should hopefully help maintain the pregnancy until the puppies are cooked enough.

She is so close to full term now I want to be sure I am doing everything I can while it still seems to be in her best interests. With that in mind: Zhora is acting totally fine, eating well, lots of energy, seems comfortable even though she is large.

I am very grateful that Dr Gray was willing to text with Renee and the other techs here while out of town so we could make a plan and decisions sooner rather than later. I am also glad that we have options which can help and a vet who is up to date on their use!

It does seem that lower levels can be normal for some bitches, and they can even carry to term with “too low” levels, but I’m following Dr Gray’s advice.

Hopefully ultrasound and x rays next week to make sure everything is still ok in there.

I expect my hairstylist is going to be covering a lot more of my gray hairs soon… I will be lucky not to get an ulcer. This is not for the faint hearted.

…so her progesterone is 5.4 today. Perilously close to that 5 number where we need to supplement to try and hold onto the litter. Plan is to retest tomorrow….she is acting fine, eating great, going for her walks every day. And we saw puppies on the ultrasound when we were playing around with it at work today.

I just felt somebody moving around in there on her right side!!!

(Jim, as usual, declined to feel it, since he feels that they are aliens, like the facehuggers in Alien, until they are born)