jr_inoz

hard to write.....

not good news here.

3 dead puppies. Mum will be ok.

To say I am shattered would be an understatement.

My girl was incredibly restless overnight last night.

20 hours to go.

Quite weird having a set time for this litter.

All fingers still crossed here.....

waiting is really really hard....

just to bore you all senseless......

temp 37.4 again this morning (at the same time as yesterday). Suspect it is just a thing she is doing.

Not long to go

How is it going jr inoz?

Nessa and her nine collies are doing well. The cat has even visited and been treated civily.

When I figure out how to add a photo I will.

Rommy's temperature went back up again around 4pm. Then up a little more, so I got a bit nervous thinking something might have happened to puppies. She had a little vomit at dinner time when she tried to vacuum her food so I was a little worried. Everything back to normal an hour or two later - so I put the vomit down to her eating too fast with her puppies growing.

Today - all looking ok..... so planned caesarean on wednesday still most likely and most hoped for. Fingers still crossed.

I have mine on puppy food by the time they are having the pups. If you barf, just keep up the good stuff so she has enough reserves, especially in weeks 2-4 when they are on maximum output. I start to wean from about 3 weeks depending on how well they are doing, mum is doing and how many of them there are.

I would put papers under the vetbed, or you will have to keep washing the marine carpet, as the liquids go through the vetbed onto whatever is underneath.

Coffee - lots of it to keep you awake!

papers under the vetbed is a good idea.....

need to increase my stack. Work had heaps before christmas and then when I went to get them, someone had a huge clean up and they were all gone!

Get a small box (how small - depends on your breed :D ) and a hot water bottle with a good thick cover. If you bring her home from her caesar while she's still not 100% back with it this is the safest place for the pups should she get restless or a little silly. Cover the box with a very light cloth (piece of sheet or old tea-towel works well) to keep the warmth in, but check every ten minutes or so by slipping your hand under the cloth that the heat hasn't built up too much.

I doubt you will need a heated whelping box - me I wouldn't even plug it in, but again that would depend on the breed.

After the first two or three days, if all is going well, a fan on medium directing air over the top of the whelping box will help keep things cool without endangering the pups.

I have my box and hot water bottle ready - box is the size of the water bottle. She is having 3 - small breed. Assume I just use hot water from the tap in the hot water bottle.

Fan is a good idea. I picked up one of those crate fans the other day very cheap. Might come in handy.

temperature back up again....

holding on....

small temperature drop here - which is NOT good news - being on progesterone she shouldn't drop at all.

Watching and waiting. Hoping she makes it through to Wednesday.....

ok - so I have my whelping supplies all ready - which I don't need now as my girl is having a caesarean on Wednesday.

Have read through the other thread on first litter and there have been lots of tips which have been great...

Just wanting to make sure I have everything I need for the time afterwards. Am sure people will be able to add to my list

I have a heated whelping box on top of a tarp. It has marine ply carpet on the bottom of it (inside) with a vet bed on top. I have two more pieces of carpet to change when required, and 3 more vet beds for changing over.

I have a small stack of newspapers which I don't think is high enough (I've put a call out for friends to try and get more...) to line the area around the box so my girl have somewhere to toilet in case I don't hear her and get up in the night to let her out. (Not planning on sleeping the first couple of nights much while she settles in - will be watching her)...

Small box with a hot water bottle and baby towells and receiving blankets (very cheap at spotlight) for bringing the puppies home from the vet. Crate for my girl.

Wondering what best supplemental formula to get in case any puppies need extra feeding or tube feeding. Would be picking this up from the vet today, but would like people's input on this. I am thinking Wombaroo formula?

There will be a little pen around the whelping box so that she doesn't go too far from her babies. (for overnight) and so that I can cover the whelping box to protect from possible drafts (planning on covering with a sheet).

Weight scale,

Record book for recording details about each puppy etc. (Already has 3 pages full of notes on this pregnancy)

plus an electronic version (spreadsheet)

Camera with batteries charged.

Food for mum? What do others do? She has been on extra food the last few weeks (been increasing through her pregnancy as per vet and mentor advice). I know she will still need extra while she is feeding.

It is going to be very hot later this week here, so am wondering about a thermometer to check the temperature in the whelping box. Going to be tricky to regulate it to be right for puppies with the hot weather. I am also planning on putting a pen around the whelping box so that I can cover off areas so that they don't get any drafts if I need to cool the house a bit. Any other things that people have done here with hot weather? I have to admit, this is the bit that worries me the most - keeping the whelping box at the right temperature with the hot weather.

Other stuff I have forgotten?

She's massive underfoot!

Best of luck hawksdale!

As for me - still haven't felt any pups moving yet . C'mon kiddies - I wanna know you're movin around in there! LOL!

I know what you mean!! With the other girl who lived here up until two days before she whelped, I could feel puppies moving from 7 weeks. Rommy is just over 8 weeks and I can't feel the at all. Makes me paranoid - but the weekly ultrasounds keeps confirming that everything is ok.

Just back from the ultrasound - 8 weeks and 2 days - 3 puppies all still looking good. Good heartbeats, not stressed. Elective caesarean on Wednesday.

I haven't been getting heaps ready cos after the last failed litter, I didn't want to jinx it. Guess now I can. The whelping box has been set up for a week, but now is time to pull all the other supplies out of the cupboard ready for her puppies.

thanks for all the replies and recomendations. I dec to get one from Bunnings and when i went there today they were on special for $127!.......this special finishs on sunday...

wow!

scissors

note book for taking note of delivary times, weights, markings/collar colour etc etc

couple of pens

i find the unbilical clamps easier to use then trying to tie something around the cord on a squirmy puppy.

laptop, so the rest of DOL can be there with you!

my friend is a doctor, who works in the ante-natal clinic at the W&C hospital here, along with doing the GP clinic at the same hospital. I asked her where I could get clamps for the umbilical cords and could she help me source them. She said don't bother - clothes pegs work just as well and are cheaper... or those "bull-clips" that you use to clip pieces of paper together.

I had read this as well.

The repro vet here in Adelaide says that using tablets to supplement doesn't produce this problem. (As opposed to injections)

mini girl, I am not sure of the exact name of the test, but I am pretty sure that the repro vet here said it was done through Monash. It has a different name to "pregnancy loss syndrome" - something scientific but I can't remember what it is. I didn't write it down at the time. I just remembered what it was testing for.

Yep but its pretty hard to cover it all especially when its stuff you expecta vet to know and inform you about - knowing you have breeding dogs.

There is always the sideways smack too.

Couple of months ago I was sitting on my front porch in the middle of 30 acres when my visitor said - whats that smell. It was the idiot next door spraying chemicals in a strong breeze which happened to dump the stuff all over us.

My first reaction is I have a pregnant dog you just put that crap all over - my friend and I had headaches for about a week afterwards . Geez I was mad. Anyway the bitch whelped O.K. Point is you cant control everything - but you do expect to get a little help.

Yep - i was exposed to termite spray in a building I was working in where it was supposed to be safe about 25 years ago. That spray is since banned in Australia. ANother girl in that office and I have had issues since. I now have an intolerance to anything that contains sulphur - including preservatives in food and many antibiotics.

Can't do much about it - like you said, some things are beyond our control.

my girl had had the heart worm vaccination in the 12 months before the first litter she lost. She hasn't had that vaccination since (coming up for two years now since her last vaccination) after I had read some anecdotal evidence about heart worm vaccination causes issues in bitches (with resorption and abortion) in the US.

She has had the revolution treatment since though. Would be interesting to see if it was the heartworm medication. She hadn't had a litter previously though.

Makes you think. (And spend hours chasing your tail trying to find answers that may not be there). Good thing I quite like the chase even if I don't get the answers I need.

Actually although its a bit off topic I thought of you when I saw this one .I think you live in an area were it would be advised to use this stuff.

It also makes you wonder if this stuff is put on the skin and it gets in and causes a problem with sperm how it might affect men who play with and touch and handle the dog while it is on there.

Im lucky Ive never even seen a flea and no such thing as ticks here so we don't need to use these products but its still food for thought at least and makes you hesitate to expose breeding dogs to anything until you check it and consider if its your best option.

Have to say it ticks me off that its not a warning before you use it.

http://bullmarketfro...health-in-dogs/

This raises a whole series of questions for my and my current situation. No ticks here, but I have been using Revolution on my girl for topical flea (and heartworm) treatment because it is supposedly safe for breeding bitches. I have never used it when my bitch was either in season or after she had been mated. I have, though, used it just before she came in season, cos on each of her last 2 seasons she has surprised me and come in season a month earlier than expected - so the treatment has been on her just a few weeks before she came into season.

hmmm......

So many things to take into account .I think in your position I would put the fact that she is a bugger at keeping a litter without extras on one side and make sure you let everyone know that this bitch with this pedigree has had this problem.

You can enter this for recording on the MDBA data base free of charge as well. That alerts anyone who has problems in future with any dog related that there is a risk this is what went wrong with their litter and they can treat it the way you have or to say its in the lines and not try any intervention. It would be a completely different answer if everyone in your breed were seeing this and if her Mum or her grandmother did this she wouldn't be here so until we have more info and we can see that its something which we need to select against or we can be sure its caused by some other reason I would keep the info close in my mind and move on as i intended to before the problem showed. For all we know supplementing the progesterone during pregnancy might impact on whether the girls in the litter will have the problem anyway.

So until we have further info I would make sure I encouraged everyone to keep these kind of records and share them and start your own research project which in a few years time might answer questions for all of us.

thanks so much for your advice. I was meaning to respond earlier with your other post as I found your information really helpful for my thinking. It helped to rule out things in terms of knowing that it wasn't close breeding that was the issue.

I am having a quiet chuckle at the bit I've bolded - in South Australia, there is now a compulsory subject called "The Research Project" for all year 12 students that I am teaching. Kinda ironic that I am conducting my own research project whilst I'm teaching the subject.

In this case, it hasn't appeared in the lines before - although the mum had two puppies not survive birth.

In this case too, the mating was a complete outcross - from an imported dog.

It is also a rare thing in this breed. (In this state at least).

I am uncertain as to what I will do in the future. Fingers still crossed for a successful litter. She is just over 7 weeks pregnant and things still ok.

Whew - you only have to hold your breath for another 2 weeks.You have probably already said but you intended to keep a bitch for breeding if the progesterone thing wasnt in the mix - is that right?

Yep. So not sure now. I am only ever going to be a very small breeder - possibly only one or two litters ever - so not sure as to ways forward really.

There is apparently a DNA test you can do for pregnancy loss syndrome that I didn't know about until after she was mated and may be the issue here. Will test her for this later. If she doesn't have it we will have exhausted all the reasons as to why her progesterone drops. The two repo vets here said that sometimes there is just no reason for it that can be found, anyway. The other sheltie breeder that used prog supplementing had a bitch that lost a litter, needed to supplement the next one, but not the one after. Weird.

In this case, it hasn't appeared in the lines before - although the mum had two puppies not survive birth.

In this case too, the mating was a complete outcross - from an imported dog.

It is also a rare thing in this breed. (In this state at least).

I am uncertain as to what I will do in the future. Fingers still crossed for a successful litter. She is just over 7 weeks pregnant and things still ok.

Its easy to find & only about 3 minutes drive from where you come out.

Straight up the road towards where the old terminals used to be, no turns just the roundabout & its on your left. Piece of cake. Hope you love Adelaide :)

Is this still the case with the carpark construction going on? I know I had to do this big circular drive around the other day when I was there. Still pretty easy to find though, when you come into the airport precinct - it just might be a bit tricker for the OP when they get off the plane and get from the terminal to AAE with the road works.

Hi

I have an Oztrail Deluxe 3m x 3m.

I can put it up on my own, I peg one leg to the ground and jiggle it until its spread out.

Downside is it is heavy and can be difficult to handle, but i wouldnt buy a smaller one as we have heaps of room for three large crates two chairs & can share if anyone else wants to.

Bunnings have a 3m x 3m gazebo at the moment, which looks, in every manner, exactly like the oztrail deluxe. The velcro on the roof is even in the same spots to fit oztrail walls. Their roofs are better than the oztrail IMO, as they have an air vent at the top which lets not only the hot air escape, but also the wind on stormy days.

Best thing - the Bunnings ones, last weekend when I was there, were only $159.

Can't beat that really.

soap and water then a quick spray with a 1:10 ratio pineoclean and water

what vaccination protocol do people follow for their puppies - especially given the AVA recommendations which state the final (second) puppy vaccination should be at 16 weeks?

I know most vets currently do 6 weeks and the follow up at 12..... If I wanted to follow the 16 week protocol, at what age would the first vaccination be? Also, what do you tell your puppy buyers if you follow this protocol? (Do they still need to stay at home after the first vaccination until after the second? - a couple of the articles suggest otherwise)

I have started following the AVA recommendations (thank goodness have a vet who agrees). Since stopping annual vaccinations, my girl's "itchy skin" has all but stopped. She no longer has the originally thought high allergy to grass. She has been titre tested and has high immunity levels, two years and 1/2 years after her last vaccination.

Also - has anyone got any links to the heart worm vaccine and its possible effects on canines?

thanks all.

Vet is recommending topical ear drops only during her pregnancy - safe.

Will be starting on those.