Hello everyone. I have a Terrier bitch here on her 58th day of
pregnancy. This morning she spotted a tiny amount of blood. Now she is
dripping some drops of clear fluid. Her contractions are very mild at this
stage, no panting yet, but she is becoming more and more restless. At the
moment she's pacing around the kitchen. She stops to lie down in the
whelping box, then she's pacing again, then back into the box to rest, then
up again... I'ts 4pm here in Australia, and I think we are in for a long
night ahead. This is her second litter, so I'm not overly worried, but just
incase I do run into some problems during the evening, "are there some
experts in the house" that would be able to help out this slightly nervous midwife?

As it is now 8.30am I am sure there will be breeders around and about soon :)

Good luck

Melody

i wouldn't say im an expert but my bitch has just had her first litter on day 59 and theyre a week old today. neway she started gettin restless on the wednesday night but things really started late thursday/early friday. the water bag came 5am on friday and then we eventually had the first pup at 2.30pm on friday. it wasn't until friday that she started really nest making. she was also wining and panting a lot. i didn't notice any proper contractions until the first puppy was being born. it sounds like your bitch is doing fine- im sure everything will go smoothly. do you have any idea how many shes got in there? i hope iv helped you a bit and good luck! just keep calm or she will think something is wrong :p
Liz

11pm and still no panting. I think she's carrying 5 pups. The contractions feel stronger, and she's taken to ripping the paper, but aside from that no major change, yet.

I am alone in the house with her, and we live a long distance from a veterinary clinic; so its nice to know that if a problem did arise, however small, I would be able to ask for sound advice, not to mention moral support, from the breeders here. Thankyou, and I will keep you posted on her progress.

Hi
Like Liz my girl had hers on friday there was no panting just a very restless night my breeder gave me this tip one trip out for a wee then another trip for a little poo then another trip for a poo but nothing there i then kept her in and ten minuets later there was her first baby just make sure when she is doing these trips to have a towel with you just in case you have to catch a pup hope all goes well
nicki

if she is straining dont let her strain for more than 1 1/2 hours before with out a pup being delivered.
The best thing is if you are worried ring the vet better safe than sorry
do you have anyone near who has delivered pups before?
There are some good sites for advice and to pass the time before that puppy puts in an appearance :-)
Best of Luck

How's it all going?
Silly me, it's the middle of the night where you are and you're in the middle of a whelping!!!
When you get back to the computer, we're all eager for news....
:)

Hope all is going well
carol

No puppies yet. No panting, no bearing down. Around 3am the contractions stopped and she fell asleep. She is very calm this morning, no contractions, ate breakfast, but her temp is still holding steady at 37.3. This is a different experience to her first delivery. Is it common for labour to begin, and then stop?

HI, hows it going? If she had proper pushing contractions which have now stopped its time to give the vet a call for advice. Fingers crossed. first stage of Labour can stop and start but once they start pushing properly, puppies should be produced within a couple of hours. If you still have no babies, I would give the vet a ring now.

6pm, day 59, and Finally, we have full labour.

She's not at bearing down stage as yet, but is panting heavily and is progressing well. Will keep you informed.

We have pushing. Here we go ...!

3am, day 60. Poor darling is still pacing and panting up a storm, but has no urge to push yet. I feel like a zombie.

Bet she does, too!
Keep us up to date....
:)

It's a girl! I had to assist, the head was stuck. But she's now breathing!

One down....how many more?

And a little boy! Smaller than his sister, but stronger. What a rush of adrenaline - I'm wide awake NOW.

I think there will be another 3 or 4 to go yet. She is doing so well, considering that she must be totally exhausted as a result of the past two days.

I'm on tenterhooks here!!! :-)

You and me both. 2 boys and 2 girls so far. The first born is the largest, so its no wonder she had difficulty.

When the first puppy came, the membrane sac appeared at each contraction, like a puffed balloon, filled with clear fluid and blood veins. But it didn't break. I've never encountered this before. After about 5 tries, it protruded enough for me to see feet and back. (Would you have broken the sac at that stage?)

I wasn't sure, so left it intact until the body was clear of mother's body, right up to the neck. Mother was lying down, so I supported the pup's body with my hand. Then I decided to break the sac with my fingers. I helped ease the head out over the next three contractions. She was quite blue at birth and took a while to breathe.

Back to it.....

No, you did the right thing, leaving the sac intact. It was still doing it's job of dilating the birth canal....Keep at it! (Offer her a drink of warm, watery milk - I expect she's dry and thirsty...)

Yes, very thirsty. I think we are all done at Four. I'll clean her now, tidy the nursery, and get some sleep before driving them to the vet for a checkup - ah, sleep, what a concept.

Thanks everyone for your tips and moral support. What an exciting night it was, and I couldn't have wished for a better result. Mother is doing great, and the babies are absolutely adorable.

Congratulations to you both, hope all is well this morning.

Congratulations to you both! Hope you all slept well!

Keep her on a light diet for 24 hours, giving lots of milky foods, with glucose or honey added. If she has eaten the afterbirths she'll probably have black squits for a couple of days - that's normal,so don't worry about it. Gradually get her back on her normal diet, but with more protein than before. And be prepared to have to force her to leave her pups to go out to wee/poo.

Good luck.
:)

Thank you for your good wishes. Mother and puppies are doing really well.

May I ask some advice? The puppies have all chosen their special teats and are ignoring two. Those two are looking a nasty red colour today and are very swollen. Unless the pups start using them, I can see a case of mastitis occurring. My question is - how do I get the pups to nurse on those teats? Holding the puppies in position doesn't work; they are too busy squirming away from my hand to concentrate on the job of feeding. Do you have any suggestions I can try?

i had this exact problem. none of the pups would feed on the back two teets so i put a warm cloth next to the teets which drained the milk away because despite constant trying i just couldn't get them to feed there. i did this twice a day. the teets were quite hard and hot but now they are quite soft and cool and the pups have finally realised there are other teets and have begun to suckle on the back two. hope all is still going ok- mine are due to open their eyes today! so exciting! iv done no work since they were born :p
Liz

If the warm cloths dont work then you may have to milk the full ones. You need you get your whole hand (sorry!!) round the breast and squeze/ draw downwards towards the teat, you have to be quite firm. I find it easier to have the bitch standing up, bend over her back and do the one on "the other side" of your legs - if you see what I mean. Pop a towel or something absorbant underneath or she will be concerned about pools of milk here and there. Milk out til the breast is not hard any more and the milk is normal consistancy - sometimes the milk gets thick and then lumpy and then mastitis is a real possibility.
I do this after exersise , then let the bitch stay with me for a little while if she is happy to . When you put her back with them with any luck the little ones will be hungry and you can direct them to the new teats - if you have milked her til it feels softish they should be able to latch on and then use it more often. If they just wont feed off it yet you will need to milk her a bit each day til the "hardness has gone" Eventually they will suck on them as they get stronger and hungrier.

Westie Lover is absolutely right - milk out the overfull breasts. A warm flannel held on for a couple of minutes will start to sften them, and then gently squeeze towards the teat. When the breast his hot and hard like this, the pups can't latch on and feed anyway, so if you can draw out some of the milk the breast will be softer and they'll be able to do it themselves.
:)

I'm sorry its taken me so long to get back to you all with a post, but I do want to say a big THANKYOU. The warm cloths and expressing worked like a charm. Puppies were feeding from those teats within 24 hours, and we haven't looked back since. Your advice saved me another long trip back to the vets, not to mention the cost and unpleasantness of antibiotics for mother. So, thankyou all. The little family is doing extremley well now, I'm back to sleeping in my own bed (as opposed to beside the whelping box) and am enjoying this litter experience so much. The only decision to make now is 'which pup to keep?'. Thank you once again.

Glad it all worked well for you. Enjoy the pups, and have fun choosing!
:)

Just for the record Westie, during her labour you said "If she had proper pushing contractions which have now stopped its time to give the vet a call for advice". I wanted to tell you that I did just that, and the late-night-emergency-vet assured me that 'she could not possibly be in labour" because I was counting the days from her first mating, as opposed to her second! He told me that she could not possibly deliver for at least another week. Well, didn't the man have egg on his face the following day when he called me to check on her progress? I had great pleasure in telling him "mother and PUPPIES are doing fine now, no thanks to you". I guess no-one knows our dogs like we do. When we are with them 24/7, we learn to notice every little signal (no different to mother and child). If she had of been in distress I would have insisted he open the surgery for her, regardless of the hour, but as she was calm enough to fall asleep, I felt relaxed about waiting that bit longer too. But I'm certainly glad that I used my common sense and didn't follow his advice to 'go ahead and get some sleep'. Our first puppy would not have survived.

wow jackowner! just read through this post!! first congratulations :d secondly if the first pup was large and having probs not only could you have lost her but mum and rest of them as well!!. thank god you followed advice on here ....my vet would have had more than egg on his face!!!!. .