We have slowly progressed over the loss of the purple pup. The remaining pups are doing remarkably well. The smallest pups are the pink, white and red dogs which are within an oz of each other and only a couple behind the rest of the pack. The pack moves around the whelp box with surprising ease, at times almost appearing to stand on all four legs. Here is a pic of the pack and mom.
The litter Nursing
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Today started out horrible! One of the puppies passed away. I found the puppy with the purple collar, dead underneath the rail at 7am. I last checked the puppies at 5am and all eight where fine. I’ve been sleeping on the couch next to the whelping box for the last four days. I found the puppy under the rail behind Wendy, but it should have been protected from Wendy accidentally laying on or rolling on top of it. We were very upset. The purple bitch appeared healty and active, so it death is a mystery. Just the day before I had spoken to Deb about watching out to make sure Wendy did not roll onto a puppy. When I checked the puppies at 5am, I physically counted all eight and had to move one out of the corner to get the full count. My daughter had named this one Mason, after JMU where she is a student. I don’t have the heart to tell her.
The rest of the puppies are fine, gaining from .5 to 1.5 oz each.
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We made it through the first night. I got a few cat naps in between checking on the puppies. Took their weight and most gained from .5 to 2.0 oz, except for the white puppy, which held it’s weight constant at 16 oz. The puppies look great and eating well. None appear sickly and all are moving around the whelping box. Here is a picture of each puppy in order of there birth
Bitch, born at 4:57pm, Wt 15.5 oz
Dog, Born at 5:25pm, Wt 17.6 oz
Bitch, Born 5:44pm, Wt 14.8 oz
Bitch, Born 5:56pm, Wt 16.0 oz
Dog, Born 6:56pm, Wt 17.3 oz
Dog, Born 7:28pm, Wt 16.0 oz
Dog, Born 7:59pm, Wt 13.0 oz
Here they are all together.
All puppies taking a nap
Here is the litter and Mom lined up!
The feeding line
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Wow, what a day! The event started Friday evening when Wendy’s body temperature drop of 1.2 deg F from the morning reading. Around 10pm, Wendy started nesting in the whelping box. She moved the towels around the inside perimeter of the box and she started digging into the floor. Around 12:30am she started panting and was very restless for the remainder of the night. In the morning, her temperature had dropped to to 98.5 deg F.She refused food and made multiple trips to the potty to clear out her colon. At around 4pm, after a trip to the potty, she had stringy fluid discharge from her vulva. The cervix plug had come out. At 4;57pm, the first puppy was born and the last, eight, puppy came at 7:59, very unexpectedly, since we only saw seven on the X-Ray. Her is a picture on mom with her litter.
Eight Puppies Born, 4 Male and 4 Female
The puppies weight ranged from 13 oz for the last one born to 17.6 oz for the first male born. All look heathly and moving about very well.
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On Monday we went to Dr. Dove for the pre-whelp X-Ray. Wendy’s weight was 80 lbs or about 10% more than normal. The Dr took three X-Ray views and it appears only seven puppies could be discerned.