Janie & Her New Puppies

Janie is fine and has five new little puppies, two boys, three girls. Here is the story of the ordeal. Some pictures are kind of gooey.

Janie went in to labor on Sunday at 7: 30 in the morning. Two amniotic sacs and green discharge came at noon. By one, still no puppies.

It seemed like there was a pup stuck, so we took her to the vet. We were lucky to find a vet on Sunday that was open and in the little local town.

The first doctor, an elderly man, did an ultrasound and he said all the puppies had good heart beats but were not in position. He felt she just needed a little more time, so we took her home. We also thought we found a vet that was close by that we liked and that we would return (we really miss Doc Dale and are having a very hard time settling into a vet).

Then from 2:30 to 3:30 Monday morning she had three puppies: the first one, a really large blue, died; the second one was a chocolate and came out nicely; the third one, a blue, shot out before the second one detached and immediately began howling. We, Mom, Dad and I, had to pull the first one out because it was too big for Janie to get out herself. We’re pretty sure it died when we pulled it out, he was breach, just his tail and bottom, no hind legs. If they are big, sometimes they don’t come before the cord detaches, then they gasp inside for air but get fluid instead.

We thought it was going to go good now that she got the big puppy out, but after the three came she stopped regular pushing, that was just too weird.

By seven she didn’t regain her regular pushing but we could see pups still in her and still moving. Mom called the Sunday vet and they said to bring her in, we were hoping to give her an oxytocin shot that would get her going again. Instead they did another ultrasound, they said that she had three more puppies in her but one was dead.

We wanted them to give her an oxytocin shot but they didn’t want to give it to her because they said her uterus could rupture. We knew that wouldn't happen because Dr. Tibbitts would give it after she had puppies all the time. He gave it too many other dogs that we knew of and had gone through his clinic where we helped. This new vet just wanted to give her a C-section but we wanted to try the shot first. They got upset that we didn’t do what they wanted.

So we called dad to ask him what to do. He called a vet that used to practice with Doc. Dale, we have known her for twenty-five years, and she said that the shot would not make her uterus rupture.

Mom and Bet drove into Tacoma to Dale’s old clinic, to pick up the shots, while Janie and I waited at home with the first two puppies. She warned Mom and Bet that it might not work, she hoped it would but Janie had been laboring for a long time.

We gave one shot and Janie’s labor picked up but nothing came, so we gave the second shot in thirty minutes from the first shot. Her labor picked up some more, but it didn’t work so we took her and her two puppies into Dale’s old clinic to Dr. Sage.

She checked Janie said that she could feel the pup in the way and it was just too large. Janie needed a C-section. At least she let as try the shot, the less invasive method, first.

We also decided to get her spade all at the same time since we had agreed this would be her last batch of puppies, now that this all happened we definitely did not want a repeat, so no more puppies for Janie.

Why she could not get the last three pups out was because there was a forth puppy. It had died a while back, was deformed and green, Dad had actually stopped by the vet while surgery was going on and our new old Doc said he could watch. Dad said it was so malformed and stiff that there was no way she could have pushed it out.

They sent Janie and pups home right away with Dad so that she could wake up at home nursing her new pups.

She was really out of it. We were told to really keep our eye on her, all night, because sometimes when the mom dog is so out of it she can roll on her pups and squish them.

Bet and I traded off watching her all night. We also were to give her small sips of water until we knew she could handle it. We also gave her little sips of chicken broth after she handled the water.

She didn’t move. But let us take care of her and her pups. We made sure they were latching on and we had to wipe there little bottoms with wet cloths to make them potty like Janie would have done if she had been awake and alert.

Now Janie and the pups are doing great. She is back to her normal self, taking great care of her pups but getting up to beg while we all eat dinner. She is her bouncy self, which she wasn’t when she came home from surgery.

Note: Sorry this post took so long to publish, I decided to try using Windows Live Writer. I'm looking forward to use it again. Thanks for being patient.