Hi Everyone,

We currently have a dog in labour. She passed the water sac a few hours ago, but no puppies have arrived. She doesn't seem to be in any sort of stress and is not pushing. She is licking herself a lot. We had her scanned at the vets last Friday - Day 57 and he said she is having at least four puppies and that they were going to be big puppies - she is a large breed so 4 puppies is a very small litter. Any suggestions as to what we should do? Should we contact the vet or leave her for another while? We have had a good few litters in the past and all of our girls had no bother delivering their puppies - with the exception of one who had her first puppy and then stopped having contractions, she ended up having to go to the vets for an injection. I would normally contact the vet with this but last time we needed help in the out of office hours, the vet on duty was rude and told us that he would not help us as he was too busy with cows calving - We live in the countryside and all our local vets team up and take it in turns for the out of office hours.

Hopefully you should have your pups by now.

For information for others as long as no green discharge has appeared then placentas have not detached and no immediate worry but pups should follow within up to three h0rus.  Oxytocin may be needed.

Fingers crossed they have been born now. For future reference, my current litter was a very slow whelping -22 hours from first to last pup -but we had 13 pups. First pup was born then nothing happened for 3 hours so we reluctantly had to call Vets Now. The vet told me on the phone to check if there was a pup in the birth canal. Use gloves if I had any and lubricant such as KY Jelly or similar. I did and indeed I could feel a pup (could just reach it) and when I touched its nose the sack burst and the pup was then born within seconds. Had there NOT been a pup there the vet wanted the bitch to come in. It ended up being such a slow whelping eventually we went in for Oxytocin and calcium injections.

Hope all is well,would be lovely to find out.

Thanks for the replies. Just a quick update. We called the vets and thankfully there was a nice vet on last night who was happy to help us. She gave the oxytocin at around three, but there was still no sign of puppies at 5am. We ended up doing a c-section and she had two puppies - one dead and one alive. It is very strange to have two in a litter for this breed. Also any ideas on how the scan on Friday showed at least 4 puppies - all with heartbeats done by a more experienced vet - and we only ended up with two? I am thinking that the vets who operated last night didn't want to add to our heartbreak and just told us about the one live puppy and one dead puppy.

If the remaining puppy (female) makes it, we are thinking of keeping her. Has anyone had a singleton litter and how did it work out for you? (we had planned on breeding this dam once more in the future and keeping a puppy then, but i'm wondering now that she has had a section should we breed from her again? and will it be another section if we did?)

I'd try one more time with her. 

A small litter is often the reason for a C section, so next time hopefully she will have a normal size litter to get things moving, as it's the lack of hormones released by pups that stops labour progressing with singletons.

I have had C sections with two of my bitches, but in their cases it was their third and last litter, but could equally have been their first, and they had their other litters with no trouble.

So much depends on what actually happened and why -which may be impossible to find out. The most common cause for pups to die would be inertia which would explain why they were alive and well on the scan. Was the bitch overdue for her breed?

I have two stories. The first my first Papillon bitch. First time she was scanned and two live pups seen. The evening before she gave birth I could clearly feel one pup moving about -no question about it. The next day she gave birth to one dead pup that had been dead for a while -it was entirely black and decomposing. (I'd ask your vet about the numbers and roughly how long they had been dead.) The second pup was also dead, so clearly had only just died. We decided to give it one more try so the bitch was mated again. This time we did several scans. The scanner said there were two pups. The vet who palpated said there were two pups. Again I could feel them move the night before. She then gave birth to two dead puppies; recently dead. Then out of the blue arrived one LIVE pup. He's now 5 years old and of course we kept him. He had no problem being a single pup, although he is the cockiest little git ever -here is a Papillon that thinks nothing of starting a fight with a dog many times his own size. The bitch was spayed.

The second story is about a Malinois, not my bitch but one I bred. She was scanned as having about 4 pups. I'd told the owner that he should expect pups early, from day 58 onwards, and certainly no later than day 64 at MOST. Any later and things would not be right as I know my lines give birth early. He kept going back to the vet who kept saying all was fine, kept scanning and showing heartbeats. Eventually the vet agreed to do a c-section day 68 (!!), again after having scanned in the evening of day 67 and seen live pups. All the pups were born dead. It was just left far too late. The vet agreed it was their fault and wrote off the bill plus some for future treatment.

The bitch was mated again and had 4 pups after a normal length pregnancy (I think it was 62 days), all were born alive although one died after a few days. Certainly small litter for the breed but this second time no problems at all with giving birth. Pretty sure the bitch had inertia the first time and the pups would have lived had the vet agreed to do a section sooner.

From my experience with Esme I always said that if my girls needed a c-section to deliver a litter that would be their last.

She produced 7 puppies naturally with her first litter but needed a section to get the last pup out. I thought long and hard but decided to have a 2nd litter with her. That resulted in a section so I had her spayed at the same time.

Mo needed a section for her one and only litter (the first pup decided to travel up the opposite horn causing a blockage). The vet did say she would probably go on and have a normal delivery if I chose to have a 2nd litter from her, and it was just "one of those things" that she had the problem with the first, but I chose not to risk it.

I may well be being over-cautious but the welfare of my dogs is my main concern.

She was day 62 today which would be quiet late for her breed - they tend to go on day 57 - 59.  We actually bred her ourselves and her mother was a brilliant mother - she had three litters of 11, 9 and 9 puppies and we only ever lost one puppy due to it not being formed properly when it was born - it was born dead. She never needed a vet and we were hoping that it would be a hereditary thing that would pass onto her children - wishful thinking!! We will have to really think about the pro's and cons of having another litter and weigh them up - plus we will have to see how this puppy gets on and how Dudley - the mother heals up.  It was a pity! This was the litter I was looking forward to the most. We own the stud dog and have never used him for a litter ourselves until now - he has had a few litters with other peoples dogs, all big healthy litters! I had been dreaming about the puppies they would have together and what they would be like. Ah well, at least we have one

We had her scanned on day 57 and all seemed ok - the vet we used last night is not our regular vet so we won't really be going there again. What makes me think that there were more dead pups when they did the section is I heard one of the vets say something about four golden boys and when she handed us the surviving puppy in the box she said he was doing great. It was on the way home in the car while I was admiring the colour of his coat that I realised he was a she!