Pups at 11-12 days

Here are videos of the girl doing ENS at 11 days.Her eyes were not yet opening on day 12, but the boys eyes can be seen starting to open in the video of both pups. The girl is very active, and wakes up suddenly at any touch to start trying to run around (legs don't quite work as she might like yet, and it is mostly still crawling, but the hind end is starting to pick her up sometimes and at 12 days she is walking a few steps). So far she is slightly more vocal than the boy, and complains a bit more when Havoc is not in the whelping box when she is hungry, which bodes well for future food motivation.

Week 1

Well, one thing about having two puppies. It is easy to tell them apart. Especially when there is such a big size difference.

At this point they are not doing much except eating and sleeping. For the first three days they lost weight, but on day four the girl held fast, and the boy gained a little. Since then, they have both been gaining in leaps and bounds.

Even when they were losing weight I wasn't very concerned, because from the moment they were introduced to mom both of them grabbed hold and started eating, and have been consistently voracious ever since.

The boy has been much bigger from the start, both in terms of bone and sheer weight. At this point he doesn't look like he has longer leg, just bulk. Girl is a lot smaller, but she is still very tough.

It is fascinating to watch the two of them fight for food spots, even though there are only two of them. If he gets there first she just pushes around to look for another teat. But eventually, or if she gets there first, he tries to push through her at some point to get to a better spot. Just puts his head down and pushes like a bull. She doesn't give an inch though, and simply hangs on and pushes back, and eventually he goes over or under her to get to another spot.

Doing ENS every day. They object most to the que-tip in the toes (doing a different foot each week). They squeal at the beginning, but when they start feeling it between the toes they stop and seem to try to figure out what they are feeling. During the other exercises they don't do much, but wiggle a bit and then settle.

Havoc is doing well. She is now mostly out of the whelping box, and now even wants to come every time I put my shoes on to go outside. I am waiting just a couple more days to start getting her back into shape.

The pups spend very little time together. My vision of pups is of a heap of puppies all piled up together. But these two are generally found at opposite ends of the whelping box, snuggled under a bit of blanket. The only difficulty is making sure they don't get stepped on, as it is often difficult to tell which bit of blanket they are under!

First impressions on the second day

Into second day ...

Blue boy is now eating Havoc food, but still needs to be forced on a teat. He is quite independent of the other pups, and is always found sleeping in a corner or under all the blankets on the side of the box. He covers a lot of ground. Not sure if spending the first day alone may have contributed to that.

Pink girl and Yellow boy are both quite aggressive in looking for food, not worrying about crawling over everyone to get to a teat. Yellow boy looks like he will be a bit of a big bruiser, while pink girl is smaller but just as focused on food.

Structurally all three look good at this point. Really nice little heads, good length of neck, really good shoulder angles, and nice rear angles as well.The yellow boy is the most substantial boy, and the pink girl and blue boy are somewhat leaner.  Blue and Pink girls are already fleshing out with muscle, but Blue Boy is not there yet. Hopefully when he starts eating more.

Havoc is great with them. Cleaning them lots, but being very careful (other than stepping on them a couple of times, but her back end is still weak, so that will get better as she gains strength). She doesn`t mind people coming in to the room to look at them, but she is attentive while they are there. If a puppy yells Havoc's head is up like a shot to see what is up, and she keeps a pretty close eye on them when she is awake. We are feeding her lots of little meals to try to get her weight back up.

Starting ENS on the pups today.

Blue Collar Boy

One pup came first. He looked good, but didn`t seem to want to suckle which is worrisome. So we have some supplement that we tried. I was resistant to the idea of tubing, so we tried instead a finger in the mouth and waiting for suckle reflex, and then dribbling formula down the chin and into the mouth.

I was pretty tired at this point, from 4 days of vigilant observation of Havoc, but it was a great relief when the little blue boy started eating a bit. I fed him again later on, before we headed to the vet clinic to try to get the other pups out, so he was content.

Once at the vet clinic everyone was pretty wrapped up in trying to revive pups, so the little already born blue boy (blue vet wrap collar) was placed under the heat lamp to stay warm without mom. Over the next few hours he had periods of panting, so I figured that the lamp was set for damp newborn pups, but was a bit hot for him. So I carried him around periodically to let me cool off.

Thinking about it now, I should probably have fed him, but at that point I was only thinking about what else was going on in the room, with Havoc`s pups coming out. Now I wonder how hungry the poor little gaffer must have been. And it must have been pretty stressful to be carted to the vet, left without a mother for the good part of a day and then carted back home.

At the vet clinic when we tried latching the new pups on Havoc they grabbed on right away, but this one day old one was still not trying. He just wouldn`t open his mouth. I tried to open it and pup him on a teat, but he just fought me, and would have non of it.

I brought the pups home with Havoc later on in the afternoon. Havoc was looking good, and the pups just lay contentedly beside her. Once we got home again the yellow boy and pink girl were right in there like dirty shirts to eat, but the blue boy still would have none of it, even when I expressed some milk on the teat and put him there.

Now I was getting a bit worried about him. At every opportunity he would crawl far away from Havoc and littermates, into a corner, often underneath papers and blankets, and simply lie there. My thoughts now are that when we supplemented, the food came fairly quickly down my finger. So after that, when he checked out Havoc, the food came much more slowly and he actually had to work for it, so he wasn`t as interested.

So in the interim, because he was looking weaker, and had lost weight since the day before, I gave him milk replacer again. Then, twice in the middle of the night, when the pups were starting to eat, I took blue boy, forced his mouth open and on a teat, and FINALLY he grabbed hold and kept with it!

With that I was actually able to sleep for a couple of hours, which after so many days of vigilance, was really welcome.

But on the second day we are up to ... if I put him on a teat he will stay there and suckle, but he won`t commit by himself yet (I have to open his mouth). And he is still done with dinner much quicker than eithor of the other two. Still not sure if he will make it, but trying to get him eating every time the others do.

Update: Sadly this boy did not make it. He became more and more diffcult to feed, and became weaker and weaker, and continued to lose weight, until finally at only four days old, he was gone.

A tough labour

Everyone we asked seem to have a different idea of when Havoc would be due. Trouble was the literature says "63 days from ovulation" or "63 days from the hormonal spike" regardless of when dogs were bred. BUT Havoc and Gryff were bred two days after she had ovulated. So was she due on January 17 or Jan 19?

She refused to eat anything on January 15, and showed some nesting signs, digging etc, so we knew that it would be sometime soon. We had a practice on Jan 16 for the demo for the Pet Expo, so I had to be there. Not wanting Havoc to be on her own we packed her into the vehicle and took her along to hang out. When we got home that evening Havoc started digging a bit, and panting, and looking generally miserable.

Okay, must be Jan 17, here we go! We waited, and waited, and waited. She would sit up occasionally, like something was going to happen, but nothing did. She would have bouts of panting lying with her head up and looking distant - that one is in the books, looking distant - classic sign, tight abdomen, and every time she drank she threw up. But after an hour of looking stressed she would lie back down and look more relaxed. This went on all of Saturday night, Sunday, and Sunday night. Everyone says first stage of labour should be maximum about 24 hours. But by Monday morning Havoc was starting to relax and sleep more and more. Hmmmmm. no visible contractions. Maybe we were hallucinating and it should be Jan 19? I started to force feed her a pasty supplement to try to keep her strength up, but it was definitely force feeding, as she didn't want ANY of that!

We kept taking her temperature because that should be a sign of impending labour, but her temperature fluctuated up and down throughout each day, so we really couldn't see a discernable pattern. It went from 100.7 to 99.3 and back up again on a not at all regular basis.

Tuesday morning Havoc was again pretty relaxed, but I was still worried that she might have been in labour, and it might have stalled, because she was throwing up all the water that we gave her to drink, she hadn't eaten in 4 days, and she had seemed to be in some sort of distant headspace of and on for 36 hours. So we carted her off the vet for a look.

The vet could hear multiple heartbeats of puppies - all good there, Havoc's heartbeat and temperature were good, and the discharge coming occasionally from her backend was clear with no sign of green or odour - all good there. The vet also did an internal and said all seemed good. So she gave her some subcutaneous fluids to make sure she stayed hydrated and sent us on our way.

At this point I would have loved to have walked her around to try to bring on a contraction or two, but of course, she couldn't walk and her hind legs were immense, so we kept rubbing her down, rubbing her legs to relieve the pressure and waited. I had now been awake, with some small catnap exceptions, since Saturday, watching for any sign of a contraction.

Home, Tuesday afternoon, and Havoc was once again resting in the whelping box, with me once again watching her. At 3:00 pm she had a slightly bloody mucousy discharge. Hmmm, that would be a good thing, or it could be a bad thing. Finally, at 4:22 she had a clear contraction. Yeah! Thankfully I was watching for it, because she didn't give much sign, other than a ripple across her abdomen that did not coincide with breathing.

So my instinct, that the 63 days actually started from conception, and not necessarily from ovulation, seemed to be holding up. Time for some puppies!

Havoc's contractions were quite light, no big moaning or groaning, just a ripple and tightening of the abdomen muscle. This had me worried that she might be a sign that she was too tired to do the job, but I kept looking for the something more, and finally at 4:55 there was the first brown protruding sac. Over the next half an hour it came out about 1 inch, and when I touched it I realized that there was a puppy in there!

Not sure if she was just getting tired, but things seemed to be stalled, so I reached in a bit and helped the puppy come mostly out (didn't want to pull too hard). Then I tried hard to rub him upside down, and clear everything, but the placenta was still not out, so I couldn't move the pup too far away as he was still connected. But at least he was alive and moving and mostly out of the sack (hind feet were still in there with the placenta. I waited a bit longer and then worked on clearing the placenta as well. I am REALLY hesitant to interfere, as I know that can lead to all sort of problems, but the pup was just sitting there for so long that I felt the need to do something. There didn't seem to be any more contractions coming, so I had to just pull the placenta out gradually.

Once it cleared I tied off the cord (not easy with one person and a wiggly puppy) and rubbed the pup down, and it seemed fine. Things were going well! That was about 7:00 pm, and it was a boy who weighed 1 lb 14 oz.

I figured it would be a bit of a wait before the next one as Havoc was pretty tired, but I knew that there were some signs to look for if there was a problem, the biggest one being any of green discharge or the mother seeming to be in any sort of distress, or the next pup taking a long time to come. So I watched and waited, and continued to do a lot of laundry (a dog who doesn`t walk still needs to poop and pee, and we were trying to give Havoc lots of water, and she was no longer throwing up, so there was a lot to clean up)

Herein lay the problem though, just like with the ovulation vs conception issue, there didn't seem to be a consensus on how long was too long. From 2 hours to 6 hours before the next pup was documented in various places. So we waited and kept a close eye on any sort of discharge, and Havoc's attitude. No problems there, clear discharge, and she was relaxed and sleeping.

Every few hours she had a couple of contractions, but they never got really strong. But of course every time I thought about calling a vet she would have some light contractions, so again there was optimism that things were getting going.

By the wee hours of the morning I was still getting pretty worried. But I could still feel kicking in there, and Havoc still looked okay. Our options were to wait a couple more hours, or to take her to emergency. If our emergency vets were okay I would have had her in there in a heartbeat. But emergency vets in Edmonton are rife with problems. If a dog is healthy and goes there for a broken leg or stitches they may come out okay. But sick or weakened dogs dont 'do so well by the time they finally get to leave the waiting room and get in to see someone.

We had had a couple of visits to the emergency vets and had been horrified by the attitude of staff, and the general states of the place (there are two clinics, both I think both have major issues). AND there is currently a really nasty bout of bloody diarrhea sickness going around the city, so chances of a non infectious trip to an emergency waiting room was pretty small. So I looked around for other options. And she still looked fine.

There were three vet clinics that I know, and respect in Edmonton. So I tried those first. Of course things weren't open yet so I left messages. When they started calling me back, the vet clinic that we normally go to had no doctors on until noon. On to the next one, when we finally got through they had no doctors on call eithor, so they were referring people to the Emergency vet. The next one had a doctor on that I hadn`t been impressed with, and that I had heard not so great things about; the doctor that I liked wasn't in at all that day.

So I started on clinics that I didn't know personally but that I had heard good things about. First one, no doctors until noon again. But they recommended another one across the city. I called there (by this time it was close to opening time) and they said come in right away.

It took over an hour to get Havoc in the vehicle and across the city to the vet (she was 80 pounds of weight, mostly in the back end, and I was by myself and had to get her out of the whelping box, through the house, down the stairs, across the snow shovelled walk, and into the van. I carried her on a blanket but it was tough and kept slipping, and I really didn't want to dump her in the snow, so we took it slow. And she just kept looking at me saying "what are you doing and where are we going"?

Finally got her to the vet and he did an internal and said the one thing I had been fearing, pup was stuck in the canal (tried to come out backwards and had no room to readjust) and clearly dead. And he said that the time frame probably meant that all the other pups were dead as well. My heart sank. But I had been sure that I could still feel movement.

The vet and technicians told me that they would be doing a c-section. and left me in the room with Havoc and went various ways, and finally I popped my head out the door and suggested to everyone that since the vet had said that the pups were probably all dead, but that I really thought I could feel some movement, there seemed maybe to be some sense of urgency. After that they become attentive more quickly, and began to get Havoc readied for surgery.

Unfortunately Havoc's veins did not cooperate and it took them 3 tries and 1/2 hour to get the intravenous in (which happened before when we were ovulation testing, so I know it is a Havoc vein issue). But finally she was hooked up and draped, and shaved and ready to go.

This vet clinic as awesome when it came time to getting pups out and they let me remain in the room while they cut her open and began the process of looking for puppies. The vet kept commenting on how many pups where in there, but said it was not looking hopeful. Still, they had 6 people on standby with towels to try to revive pups. He started taking pups out and passing them off, and I give full credit to the rubbers, they tried hard, but the pups were simply too far gone to revive.

Then, the vet cam to the final pup in one uterine horn and he said that one seemed to be in better shape. They started towelling, and hopes raised when that pup started yelping at the rubbing process. 1 alive! Boy. Then the vet started on the second horn and the pups were once again dead. But toward the top of this horn they came across a pup that seemed to want to try to live. There wasn't much, but after vigorous towelling there was a weak sign of life. So they continued to try. Then came the last pup, and once again, good yowling quickly after towelling began. Two alive, one on the edge.

They worked on the weak one for 20 minutes, and put it on oxygen. It would take one or two breaths and they stop, but if it was jostled repeatedly it would finally take one or two breaths again. It was a nice sized girl, and I was saddened to see the trouble she was having. Finally they had her breathing somewhat, and so she went with the other three pups (the naturally birthed one from the day before was also there) under the heat lamp.

Havoc took quite a while to come around, but they had based the anaesthetic on her pre-pregnancy weight, and she hadn't eaten for a few days at that point, so I think she was just well under.

But she finally came around, and we were all put in a clinic room together (Havoc, the pups, and I) so Havoc could continue to revive and get fluids, as her gums were as white as chalk.

The weak pup was having a lot of trouble from the get go, the hind end didn't really seem to work, as the other pups were crawling around the tub under the heat lamp, but she just lay there and tried to breath.

Once Havoc was looking recovered enough I brought the pups out to try to suckle. The weak one would not even try, and kept throwing her head back, but the other new boy boy and girl latched on with great enthusiasm. Good start! Finally, after a couple of hours of trying the weak one just gave up, and was gone. She put in a valiant effort but just couldn`t manage it, so she joined the 9 others who did not survive (12 in the litter, 3 survived that process, but the first one who had been born one died two days later)

I brought them all home later that afternoon. Thank goodness for that vet clinic, because their efforts really helped to save those two last pups, and now there is at least company in the whelping box.

Havoc is very pregnant

Being a first litter for both Gryff and Havoc we were unwilling to jinx it by assuming too early that Havoc was actually pregnant. She did start to act a little oddly fairly quickly, being even more affectionate than she normally is, which is REALLY saying something. She also started to play more roughly with her sheltie playmate Feisty, who was forced to accede on a regular basis with "ENOUGH, you have me pinned already, now let me up!"

Havoc didn't see what the problem was, she was just playing, but she was playing with Feisty in a manner that she normally reserved for the big rough and tough dogs who also liked to wrestle. Feisty was used to the softer play that Havoc reserved for smaller dogs and puppies. But after Havoc was bred, Feisty was relegated to rough tough status, which she wasn't sure she appreciated.

After a few weeks, it was impossible to demy the obvious anymore, Havoc was really and truly pregnant. And if the size she was starting to attain meant anything, she was going to have a lot of puppies.

By 4 weeks she was already really big, and I started to wonder how she would manage getting much bigger, and I started to look for more puppy homes for the potential horde that was on its way.

Interest in the litter started to grow as Havoc kept growing. Her activity level dropped way down in the second month, as it was just too hard to do things with all that extra weight, and that big belly. The defining moment can when she was sort of running around the training hall chasing Feisty, and Feisty sprinted up and over the ramp. Havoc ran up to the ramp, stopped, looked up, and said "I don't think I can make it".

Toward the very end of the pregnancy Havoc really started to show the strain. In the last week her 35 pound frame was carrying over 40 pounds of puppies! Her back legs drew the brunt of the burden, and they swelled up with water to twice their normal size. In the last couple of days she could no longer even walk, she would manage to get up, take a step or two, and then her back end would simply give out from the weight.

She also could not eat much at all in the last few weeks, taking smaller and smaller meals as the pups filled up all the room. In the last couple of days she wouldn't eat at all, not her dog food, not canned food, not even fresh cooked chicken. She was full already!, and she was getting ready for the big event.

Malinois Pups on the Way?

Horray, Havoc is bred!
(I know this is my first blogging post, but I thought I might as well dive right in.)

Havoc, my 4 year old Malinois, had her first romantic experience, (well maybe not quite so romatic) two days ago. My last litter was over 10 years ago, so I am pretty excited. Havoc is an exceptional female, she has her Conformation Championship (in three shows against all hairy Belgians), runs 3.8 seconds in Flyball, is a Superdog Star, and is one of the fastest 26" dogs in Agility in Canada. But best of all she has a SUPER sweet temperment to go along with all that drive, and loves kids, puppies, and people and dogs in general. It was really tough to make the decision to pull her from competition to breed just when we are getting it all together, but she is just way to nice not to breed, and she is getting older, so I needed to make the decision now or not.

The stud is her duplicate in a male body. Great temperment, drive, drive, drive (won the Ringsport 2 National Championship at 2 years of age), and comes from really good lines. The two should be a great combination.

But neithor one had been bred before, so when I made the long drive (9 hours) to 100 mile house I was pretty nervous. Would he be interested? would she stand? would he snap? would she snap (they are Malinois, so snapping can be a bit of an issue), would I be too late?

At least I knew she was ovulating! After 3 visits to the vet; one on Thursday (she is at 2, we need her at 5, come back Saturday); Saturday (she is at 3.6, we need her at 5, come back Monday), Monday (she is at 7, she already ovulated, get her to the male NOW)

But it is a 9 hour drive! Crap.

So yes she was ovulating, but time was running out, even as we were heading out! (I didn't even have time to put the snowtires on, and yes, it is snowing now in the mountains, white knuckled driving there!)

So I finally got to the male, and we reintroduced them (they had meet a few months back for an afternoon of play). He was definately interested! Yeah! And she was definately standing! Yeah. But now the inexperience reared its ugly head. He just wasn't sure what to do with it.

She was very patient, she just stood in the middle of the yard and waited, stood and waited, stood and waited. He wanted to do something, but couldn't quite figure out what. So he just kept licking, and prodding her with his nose. I think her patience was actually deterimental, as if she had played and rough-housed and run around, he probably would have figured it out faster. But as it was, she just kept standing in the middle of the yard, saying, HERE IT IS ALREADY! Which wasn't as helpful as it might at first appear.

So, we finally seperated them for an hour or so, to help heighten the anxiety level of the male, then let them try again. He started to get closer, but just couldn't quite connect ... what is about a watched pot that never boils?

After another hour or so we seperated again, and started to explore options. If she hadn't ovulated on Sunday, this being Tuesday, it wouldn't be an issue. Clearly the male was going to get it eventually, he was getting closer to figuring it out all the time. The question was, would he get it in time for her to catch, for the eggs to still be viable (72 hours generally). We phoned around to various vets in the area ... no, don't do insemination, over and over. Finally we found one vet, an hour away, who would do it the next day. That would be at the very end of viability, but at least it was a fall back plan.

It was close to 5:00 pm now, so we figured we would let them try again for a while, and then I would head back to the hotel to be ready for the morning commute to the vet. We stayed inside and watched through the windows to give them their privacy. Finally, he had everything in the right place at the right time, and voila, tie! They were so good even about that. No snapping, or stress, he figured out how to move his foot over to be more comfortable, and they were fine with me going out to ensure that they would both stay calm during the tie. It lasted close to 10 minutes, so he had a lot to offer, but they finally broke apart and we all breathed a HUGE sigh of relief.

We cancelled the vet, but I drove her out from the hotel to him one more time the next morning and he got it all together within about 20 minutes. Another tie. This one about 5 minutes. I think he knows the job now!

Then we were off on the long drive home, a lot more relaxed and with a great sense of anticipation... after 10 years, puppies once again on the way!