Having had to have a caesarian in the early hours the other morning, what is your opinion about how long to wait after waters break and the need to seek Veterinary help?

Hope all was well after the caesarean.  I think it all depends on what's happening with the bitch really, any signs of contractions or distress etc.  I think we have a tendancy to panic in the middle of the night when there's no real support around.
I too, will be intested to hear others views.  How long did you wait and are you now thinking you could have waited a while longer?

I think you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
What I mean is, if you wait too long you could lose the entire litter and mum.  But if you hang on a bit longer it might have happened naturally?  Doesn't do to dwell on what ifs in my opinion.  But, I don't like a hasty vet either!
Even so, I waited 3 hours with my lazy, slightly fat bitch.  I knew she was going to be a long, hard labour and I wasn't wrong.  It was only after getting her to the car that the big boy pup arrived but we were on our way to the vets for Oxytocin/section.  I also have had bitches into the vets for this injection and then delivered pups on the way home!  Why did your vet not try this?  Or did they and it failed?

Alot depends on what you are seeing and what the bitch is doing.

From water sac to first pup varies, I have waited 2 hours and the pushing has only lasted 20 mins or had water sac and 20 mins later a pup, those with huge numbers of pups have less room in each horn so you wouldn't expect a long wait between pups.

At the first signs of green discharge and no pups have been born or very close then off to the vets as a placenta has seperated cutting off blood/O2 supply to pup.

If dam is distressed and nothing is happening or contractions are not strong/consistant enough then again vet needs to intervene.

Better to go early than too late.

Her waters broke after midnight, but nothing happened after that other than some panting and sleeping. No contractions so we just waited for something to show some signs of the labour progressing. Just after 3 ish we were discussing that if nothing at all had happened by 4 then we would phone the Vets. About 3.45 I noticed some fluid under her and decided to move her so that we could see what was going on. I noticed that the fluid had a tinge of green so made her get up fully and that is when we saw a blob of green. On the phone to the Vet immediately and was told to meet them at the surgery. The Vet said we could go with an Oxytocin injection but as we had seen no contraction we opted for caesarian as we felt that as she hadn't had any contractions we might end up with say one pup born, then another Oxytocin for another but what would hapen to the others in there after that. The first pup was dead (well we knew that was the case anyway), the next pup was struggling but they had lost her by the time we picked our girl up but we had 6 live pups. The pup behind the two dead ones was very green and we couldn't get him to feed. As soon as the local surgery was open we whizzed him down and they administered an AB and syringe fed him for the day for us. We brought him back that night and syringe fed him. During the wee small hours I managed to get him on a teat. We are still supplementing him as we are not sure how much he is taking from Mum and slowly he is staring to fill out a bit. We are feeling more hopeful for him now but we are not counting our chickens yet. I feel that he may have taken some of the dead puppy fluids down him as the second day I toileted him and a most horrible green poo came out and that is when we seemed to turn a corner with him and his feeding. Keep your fingers crossed. However, you just wonder if we should have been at the Vets sooner and wanted to hear other peoples opinions on time limits that they would set, as after all we only learn from other peoples  experiences.

I think each decision you made was a perfectly reasonable one given what was happening at the time. You are looking at things now with  hindsight but as someone else said, damned if you do and damned if you don't.  

Well done in bringing forward the little traumtised one :).

Think is all really depends on the bitch. My last litter my bitch was doing brill had delivered 5 pups every 45mins-1 hr. After 2 hrs she wasn't doing anything and with my panic head on I rushed to the vets as I knew she had more pups to deliver. She was x-rayed and had one pup left and my vet felt left to get own devices she would of delivered it as they can have a break in between pups as long as she wasn't contracting and showing no signs of distress. Oxytocin shot and the pup popped out 10 mins later. Looking back I was  probably too hasty and should of given her a litter longer.

So sorry to read that you lost pups.

If the pup behind the dead ones was green then those pups had been dead a while and his membranes ruptured for the green gunk to have got to him too, if you had waited and used Oxytocin he would probably have been dead too.

If you want to know if he is getting anything from Mum then weigh him before and after feeding from her using digital scales which have smaller increments, for her to get enough to supply all 6 pups then it is important that he feeds from her too, put him on the teats nearest her back legs,they flow the easiest and take less energy to use, remove the other pups so he isn't being bullied to move over. To give him extra energy but in a small quantity give him nutro/vet drops 20 mins before feeding, they won't fill him up but will give him the oomph to suck.

I hope they all settle down and thrive now, keep us posted.

Thanks Rhona. Funnily enough the pups all fight for the front teats. You would think we were trying to poision them when we try to put them on the back ones ( although we do make them go on them for our girls sake).  Luckily, the little boy once hooked on will not let go and the big ones cannot move him for love nor money. At one point today he was on the teat for 55 minutes but asleep for some of that time. Thanks for your opinions, my Husband is beating himself up about it whereas I feel that if we had rung the Vet and said that she was not distressed but just panting then resting I don't think they would have asked us to come in but I really thought I would ask what others would have done as the people on this forum talk a lot of common sense. I personally feel we have been very lucky as our girl is safe and  we do have 6 pups here.

As you said there was no reason to panic till you saw the green discharge and you acted on that so tell your hubby that you did the best you could with the info you had and are blessed to have a healthy dam and pups so enjoy them as time goes by too quickly.

Alison, I think you will get different answers depending on breed and experience.  With mine, I would be at the veterinary hospital sooner rather than later - and I most definitely never panic.  Although I have whelped loads of toy litters, once water breaks, I refuse to wait over 40 minutes before getting in the car.

To be fair, once a bitch starts, I have everything ready "just in case" as it is no big deal to not need it, but a bloody big deal if it's not ready and needed desperately!

So far, I have never, ever regretted a decision to make a nighttime drive down the motorway.  The last time I needed a vet, the bitch had whelped previously, so I had an idea of what to expect, and I felt that she wasn't progressing as fast as I would expect.  I raced to the hospital, where the vet agreed that the bitch was fully dilated.

She gave my girl oxytocin, and asked if I wanted to go home.  I appreciate that lots of breeders take the bitch home, and that's fine.  But it is something that I won't do with the tiny breeds.  I once drove back with a bitch, and, being alone, I could do nothing about helping my girl when she started producing.  I was on a motorway, and she had to manage while we got home.  A dead puppy was the result. 

So, I stayed with my girl, and the vet went off to make us a coffee.  I hadn't met this vet before, so we got to know each other while my girl had been placed in a heated cabinet.  I was there for over 4 hours, and was allowed to deliver my own litter. 

But, had my girl needed surgery, we could have got the section underway pretty darn quick.  My invoice said "supervised whelping."  It was worth a couple of hundred quid to know that my bitch wasn't going to be in danger because I couldn't get to the hospital in time.

I lost 2 pups , that arrived 10 days early , the vet on examining them said the umbilical cords were green  and the bags were . He assured me it was better the bitch 'gave birth ' to them early , or I could have lost the bitch . he said I never would have managed to revive the pups ...they were not viable . You did your best . good luck .

Sorry to hear you lost 2 - but hopefully now all survivors will thrive.  How's mum?

Quite a few years ago now, a maiden bitch of mine started to leak a pale green liquid around her due date. Of course it was a Sunday and my vet had recently stopped weekend cover - I phoned the on-call surgery and they said leave her and see how things progress.  This carried on all day, leakage getting greener by the hour!! I made several calls, always same advice.  She eventually started contracting in the late evening and safely delivered 10 puppies during the night.  All live and well, one was fairly stained but absolutely fine.  Just to prove really that seeing green fluid isn't always a bad sign.  I think, just as someone else has posted, you just have to do what you/your vet thinks is the right thing to do.  You may well have left her a while longer and lost more - I think we beat ourselves up a bit much sometimes.  We go by experience and gut feeling, you have a live bitch and 6 pups which is an excellent outcome as I'm sure many others have tragic outcomes.

Always good to have this type of discussion on here, lots we can all learn. 

I think you did the right thing.  If your bitch wasn't stressing or pushing, then I would've left her too for a while.
And Brilliant, you saved a life!! with your quick thinking for the ABs.
I lost an entire litter through not knowing and a novice vet the same way.  All those little lifes lost just because he didn't want to prescribe ABs.  Now, of course, I know much better and would always start them on ABs if I loose any in the litter that way.

Well done!!
Now, how's mum and babies doing now?

Thanks everyone for your input.
Mum and pups are doing really well. The little boy is starting to put a bit of body on so we can relax a little. Thankfully, the Vet nurse that looked after him the first day did a good job on him. They also checked him fully and he has a good, strong heart and so he did stand a chance but you can't relax too early. Mum wanted her pups as soon as she came out of the anaesthetic so that wasn't a problem thankfully. Thanks for your good wishes. All have good homes to go to, and yes, one is staying here.

Thanks for the update

Glad to hear he is picking up

My bitches water broke and I waited for an hour and nothing, she was just resting no panting, got up and changed position a couple of times. I phoned the vet and they said to bring her in, it was the emergency vet not my normal vet, the call went through to some central clinic.
I had just put the phone down, when my bitch did a llittle grunt and then out popped a puppy !! Things progressed normaly from then on and I rang the vet back to let them know.
From my own experience I would say that each whelping is different, and we have to just follow our gut instinct, things often do go wrong, and from speaking to other breeders it is not unusal for some puppies to be still born, probably why dogs have a litter, nature takes care that at least some will survive to carry on the speices.
Tell your husband not to beat himself up, it sounds as if you did everything you possibily could.
Congratulations on your litter and your bitch is doing well, so just relax now and enjoy them.

You did absolutely the right thing, and what I would have done with my limited experience, I don't think I would have acted any sooner as every bitch is different.

We had to make that kind of decision.  She was taking a long time, she wasn't in distress, and there was no funny discharge, but she wasn't progressing like I thought she should.  Every time we thought about heading out or calling the vet something would happen so we'd wait a bit longer.

When we were about to give in and go she started having full contractions and one pup, but then we went through it all again. 

Talking with friends and mentors we walked her out, did all things, she wasn't distressed, and she wasn't in inertia, but it just didn't seem right.  One friend suggested taking her for a car ride as that has helped them to get a bitch going.  I figured if we were driving anywhere we'd head to the emergency vets and get an xray and see what was going on.  Worth it to me even if it was nothing, just to be sure.

As it turned out pup no. 2 had missed the birth canal and was lying across it blocking the other 5 behind her.  Had we waited much longer (they still needed to get her fluids etc up so still needed to wait a couple of hours before operating) we could have lost everyone including mum.  Yet she was showing no signs of distress.  Everyone managed to survive, even the culprit who was blocking and she's my show keeper!!

Sometimes you have to follow your gut, and better safe than sorry.  In your circumstances I don't think you'd have had a different result if you'd gone any earlier, but certainly if you'd gone much later things could have been different.

Good luck with your little boy.

My bitch's waters went at 11.30pm, she started pushing straight away and nothing happened. At 1.15am I was just gathering everything needed to take her to the vets and out came the first boy- he was huge.

I realise I waited longer than is advised, I was in two minds about what to do, i'm glad I didnt take her to the vets earlier as she managed to deliver the final 3 with no problems (other than one needing dopram and stimulating alot) but if it were to happen again, I would probably leave it no longer than an hour or so.

I usually wait a couple of hours.  My last girl was pushing and pushing and nothing was happening so took her to the vets.  He wanted to give Oxytocin but I knew something was wrong.  Boy was positioned across ways and there was no way that he would of come out naturally.  In the end had three gorgeous healthy pups and a well mother who acted though nothing had happened.  She was a brilliant mother.