Forum Moderators: open
so I went back to bed and got a few more hours of sleep. I took a picture a few hours ago and posted it in my yahoo profile, which is listed in my WebmasterWorld profile on the upper left hand of this post. Right now everybody is clean and dry and actually starting to look much cuter, but that's what they looked like at about 9 am this morning.
....but the story doesn't end there.... her sister, Ginger, my main race leader, is in the pen beside her and was impregnated the same day, and both she and Runt were due on the 28th, so I expect to see 1-3 more (hopefully) in the next few hours, instead of the middle of the night tonight, but hey, I'll be happy to see my new little friends whenever they show up. I’ll let you know how that goes.
so I expect to see 1-3 more (hopefully) in the next few hours, instead of the middle of the night tonight
She'll wait three more days, and then have them at 2am. ;)
Congrats! And thanks for waiting 'till they were fluffy and cute to take the photo. hehehe
May I suggest MailOrderCigars. :)
Happy Puffing,
Shane
[edited by: mivox at 8:53 pm (utc) on June 3, 2003]
[edit reason] delinked [/edit]
Its hard to tell how many there are. It looks like more than three! Their little behinds are very cute. Be sure to post one of their faces when they open their eyes!
>Are Runt and Ginger part of the litter you posted like two years ago?
yep, good memory... 2 years, one month, and one week
>Wasn't most of that litter was golden I seem to remember.
exactly. 8 blonde pups (including Runt and Ginger) plus 2 gray ones. Their mother was white and the father, yellow. That's why it was surprising to see such dark little pups out of Runt... some are really dark brown with black muzzles, but none are even close to white. Apparently the father was all brown, but I never saw a picture. He was 1/8 pure Saluki and weighed ~47lbs
>the minute I read the tag line I knew the joke because I fell for it once before.
heheeheh yeah, not too original (it came from my 'season wrap up' post), but I still get a kick out of it:) Actually the title was also used back 2 years ago when I announced Runt's litter... but you got to cut me some slack... I was too drained to come up with anything too creative.... hell, I even had to have NFFC edit my title because I screwed up my 8 words:)
Well, still no Ginger puppies.... right before I went to bed last night I went to check on her.... I thought she was acting a little strange so I got out my little chair, like I did with Runt, and sat down to wait..... and wait....and wait. Finally I couldn't do it anymore so I went and got my sleeping bag and came back out and slept on and off until the clouds opened up and the rain stormed down on me around 2:30 am. Runt and pups were safe in her box, and Ginger went into hers, so I packed up and went in the house too.
But this morning, still nothing.... so I guess they really want to make a grand entrance but after waiting 3 days, I'm not sure if you would still call this 'fashionably late':)
This reminds me of when I was a kid and our German Shepherd had puppies - I immediately named one of the little pups, Goopy. :)
I saw the picture of your pups. They're very cute. Congratulations.
But this morning, still nothing....
My mom bred dogs my whole life. It's funny how much alike the different breeds look when they first come out... Between wirehaired dachsuhunds, miniature schnauzers, chow chows and standard poodles, the only big difference when they first come out (besides color and overall size) is that the poodles have wavy hair, and the chows are noticeably fatter than all the others.
They're all squirmy little otter-looking things otherwise... cute as anything. Those little squeaky-grunty noises newborn puppies make just melt my heart every time. :)
Talk about cutting it close. This was a dangerous one. X-rays and ultrasounds, and arguing vets and reproductive specialists... some say cut her now, others wanted to wait 12-24 hrs. We got home at 10 pm. I got my sleeping bag out and got a few hours sleep off and on, but Ginger got more and more restless and finally went into full blown labor at about 12:30 am. I new it was the real deal, so I put the bag away and put my insulated Carharts on, and sat and pet her for 2 hours. When she had the first one, Runt, in the other pen, heard it and mistook it for her own, causing even more late night pandaemonium. The pups came 20 minutes apart. Ginger was relaxed after the first one and didn't even realize when the second one came out at first, until I showed it to her. Then, I'm embarrassed to say, I got crazy hungry and snuck away for a late night bowl of spaghetti between number 2 and 3....heehheeh... no idea why
....but now maybe all of us can get finally some rest... I’m off to bed.
I got crazy hungry and snuck away for a late night bowl of spaghetti
I think that's the last thing on earth I'd want to eat in the middle of watching a birth... hehehe. Eewww. (Maybe toast, or popcorn, or something nice and dry, without anything red on it...)
Congrats on the procrastinator. :) Glad to have that over, I'm sure.
heheheeh I know, I know.... all of a sudden I was famished. I saw it there and it was all I could think about. I kept checking between my microwave and the puppy box.... and then ate outside. But Ginger was fine and content, no longer in visible pain. She was resting on her side, eyes closed.... plus, there is nothing I can really DO. I just tried to keep her comfortable and make sure she didn't eat the pup along with the placenta.... but by the 3rd one, I wasn't worried anymore. The first one though is always a little scary... the dog is always seems very surprised and excited and not sure what just happened nor what to do.
--------------------------------------------
On a different note, I guess I just wanted to talk about overdue dogs in general, just in case anyone ever runs into the same scenario and thinks, 'well, dogboy's litter came out ok, I'll think I'll just wait and see'
Yeah, this second one was scary. The vets in Utah, who are specialists and did the implant, were adamant about an immediate C-section. I just figured out that the vet here (who did the x-ray and ultrasound) had brushed up on 'Dystocia' (see [labbies.com...] ) and misinterpreted the '<' sign for a 'greater than' sign (in another reading) and thought we were still in the OK area for heart rates, when in fact they were actually very low, indicating 'fetal stress'. But, it all turned out, without the surgery, and I think all involved were better off for it. We were lucky.
I found this article on gestation very helpful, if you are interested...
[ivis.org...]
...it was written by a vet for other vets, but I muddled through most of it. I guess the point here is, unlike humans and some other animals, dogs are exceptionally reliable when it comes to gestation periods... if they don't drop within 2 days of their due date, you have a serious problem. I'm my case, we had absolutely no bad symptoms (except the heart rates of the pups) but I knew what most of them were, and found out about the rest. The other thing is that we were doing all sorts of tests on the females so we knew exactly when to extrapolate the due dates. In hindsight, I should have been monitoring their temperatures (at the same time of the day, every day) for the last week... when they are ready, their temperatures drop below 99 degrees F... if more than 24 hours pass from that time until delivery, you have a problem.
...anyway, we were indeed lucky.
when they are ready, their temperatures drop below 99 degrees F... if more than 24 hours pass...
At that point, couldn't you just induce under veterinary supervision, rather than going straight to major surgery?
Glad everything worked out either way though. Just don't understand the spaghetti thing. ;)
... What else can I say? I'm Italian:) I guess the whole thing fundamentally touched me at a primal level:)
re: inducing labor
I can't really tell you. In the ivis.org link I gave, it said,
"The possible value of pre-surgical administration of dexamethasone has not been reported, but there is anecdotal evidence of its successful use in some practices. The intention is apparently to mimic the natural rise in corticosteroid that likely occurs at normal parturition."
... but when I said this to Vets in Utah, they said scornfully, "we don't use steroids to induce labor" ....to which I replied 'oh' :) The vet last night also did not recommend the use of this drug, although inducing I think was one option. I just don't know how they would have done it. But in all cases, it seemed like they wanted to jump straight to a C-section. The same article said,
"Elective and emergency c-section is extremely safe as performed in the United States and Canada [5]. The pup mortality was the same as, or possibly less than, that observed with natural delivery, and bitch mortality was 1%."
...so I think the reason was they didn't want to put the pups into a stressful situation and removing them would have been the easiest, least stressful on all but me:)
I think also that depending on the situation, if they don't come out, it is not because the dog isn't in labor, it is because there is an obstruction.... possibly 2 pups in the canal at the same time, past pelvic trauma physically preventing anything from coming out, etc. In most cases, however, I think it is most common in really small breeds, older dogs, and breeds with small bodies and huge heads, like Bull Dogs, in which case I believe C-section is a planned part of the whelping process.
I think also that depending on the situation, if they don't come out, it is not because the dog isn't in labor, it is because there is an obstruction....
Well heavens... I'd assume they'd check for that before inducing. ;) But I guess if c-section is so easy, no reason not to. I'd just be worried about the bitch's ability to birth naturally afterward...
C-section is a planned part...
>I'd assume they'd check for that before inducing.
well, that's partially what the x-rays were for
>I'd just be worried about the bitch's ability to birth naturally afterward
I still am.... that was not smooth enough for me. She wasn't just late, she was having problems. I dont know if we would be so lucky next time, if there was a next time. If I want to do a re-breeding to that stud, I'm inclined to breed her big sister, Gypsy (the one who had the accident) before doing her again.
this is from the vet who did the implant
( [dpfa.org...] )
" If the pregnancy continues past the 66 day range [from the LH peak or progesterone equal to 2.0 ng/ml] daily ultrasound examination can determine the level of fetal stress and indicate the need for intervention. Normal fetal heart rates are between 175-200 per minute, when stressed heart rates will drop. Rates below 150 indicate the need for immediate intervention probably through cesarean section."
...We were around day 70 and Sleepy was at 120 bpm... if we were back in UT, they might have been named 'Cutter', 'Snippy', and 'Stitches' :)
[edited by: dogboy at 10:58 pm (utc) on June 3, 2003]
