Hi. First time on this forum and having visited on numerous occasions recently, I felt this was the best place to seek some advice.

To cut a long story short, here is the basic background. My wife's best friend bred Golden Retrievers for many years and developed a really nice strain with excellent temprement and attitude. Previous to my wife and I getting together, my wife lived with her friend and spent a many years with the dogs. When our friend became ill and it was apparent it was terminal (by which time my wife and I were living together) I spoke with our firend about having a puppy from what was sadly going to be her last litter. This was all arranged and it was a proud day when on my wife's 40th Birthday I presented her with 'Lilly'. Our friend died a few months later but my wife and I were determined that all our friend's hard work over the years would not go to waste and we would continue the lineage.

4 1/2 weeks ago our Lilly had her first pups. Unfortunately it has not been a smooth affair. The pups came a week premature. She went into labour before midnight and produced her first pup about 5 hrs later which was stilborn. Immeadiatly after 9I was still working on the first pup), a second and very small, not well formed pup also arived dead. I felt at that moment that the whole litter was about to be thrown dead but an hour later the third arrived, and although not moving, we got it going and it seemed to be alright.

Please bear in mind that this was our first litter and although I had worked on the farm in my younger days and had a little experience in animal births, that was not a whole lot of help 20 odd years later. There was a lot of discovery going on during this birthing on our part.

With the third pup seemingly doing okay, we waited for the next but nothing happened. After 4 hours we went to the vet, thinking that she had maybe just the three. The vet checked her out and said it felt as though there were more and that the could be moving down on their own, so best to take the mum home and give it a couple more hours. Still nothing hapened, so back to the vet where we decided to opt for a cesearean. This produced a further 5 pups of which 4 were alive.

Their birth weights were around 8-10ozs, whereas the norm for GT's apparently is 16-24ozs. Over the next two days we lost 4 of the pups and were left with one bitch, who it has to be said, looked the most promising from the outset.

She has done well this last 4 weeks and put on weight daily.

Now to the current problem. It seems she could be suffering from Puppy Swimming Syndrome. We are again off to the vets tomorrow for another check but last Tuesday when we went, I did feel the vet was somewhat apprehensive about the pups condition. Her back legs have not developed very strongly.

At first, I thought it was due to her not having any competition with other pups and having more than enough milk. i.e. fat lazy pup. But now it seems this is not the case. Any thoughts that she was just a slow developer have faded and the realisation that we have a problem on our hands has taken over.

Her front legs are just fine and she show no weakness. But her back limbs do not get going very well. Occasionally she can get a leg under her when attempting to walk but her ankles seem incapable of keeping her feet firmly placed. We've avoided from day one, having just newspaper on the box floor and she has one of those polyester/wooly mat things following advice from elsewhere.

She does somethimes get up on all four limbs and can, for one or two steps look like she may get better given time. I have read on the internet some ideas on this which vary from 'don't bother', which doesn't even get the time of day around here, to sock type jackets and making pups lie on their sides to help enhance the chest frame. For my part, I have considered a swimming excersise and already have started working on manipulating her rear limbs, aka physiotherapist style.

I am hoping that soe of you learend folk here may be able to enlighten a few thoughts which can help. After all we have been through of late, we are determined to have something work out.

Many thanks

Lionel

Have a look at this thread

Hello Lionel
I bred a litter of two puppies that were swimmers (born 8th May this year). I, like you, was very worried about them. They were quite badly affected. Their back legs were bent the wrong way, Hyper-flexed, to give it the correct terminology. The best therapy for them was to get them out on the lawn, they didn't look back after that. The grass helped them enormously, to get a better foothold. Please don't give up on them, I can email you photo's of my pups and you can see for yourself. Our Vet. too, was very gloomy about the outcome for them but has had to eat his words!! I have kept the little girl from the litter and she is gorgeous. A right little trouble maker!

Regards

Yvonne

Moonmaiden, Thanks for the link which I have duly read.

Hi Yvonne,

Yes, I see your exploits from the link Moonmaiden provided. This afternoon, I made up a jacket from a pair of lycra tights (NOT mine okay :)). This seems to be quite a good a material as it supports well but doesn't appear to constrict to tightly. The pup, Rosie, has been out all afternoon on the grass seeing as it has been such a perfect day.

Now just as soon as I put the jacket on, Rosie took the best steps so far. I am sure it is down to the grass as well, as nothing else seems to provide such a good grip for her feet. At one stage she shook herself (as though wet) and promptly went flying. Okay, no wondrous show of dexterity, but it was the first time she had ever tried the manouver.

Since bringing her inside this evening, I have been looking for something to put in her box that would provide the same grip as the grass but with no success. I am tempted to go to the garden centre tomorrow and see if they have any of the false stuff, though I suspect it won't help. Just grabbing at straws.

Thankfully the weather looks set to be okay for a few days so she can be outside a lot.

As I said, we are off to the vet though I should say she has been wonderful throughout. I think what I meant about my vet earlier, is she declined to say anything bad may be happening as we had already been through a pretty rough time.

Rest assured, I will never give up and thx so much for sharing your experience so folks like us don't think we are doing this alone.

Regards

Lionel

Are you using a Vetbed type of fabric in the pup's run/whelping box?

Hello Val,

Yes I am.

Regards

Lionel

Great. That's the best you can do indoors.

Just a thought - I'm typing as I'm thinking! ;)  If turf is so much better for swimmers (I've no experience myself) is it worth getting a piece for indoors?  B&Q are selling it off at 50p a piece here.

Its not hopeless at all..you can make hobbles out of masking tape its strong enough to hold but easy to remove and replace

have you put it on eggshell foam and the fabric or towel on top?  that's what I did and keep rotating side to side when ever you see them flat as much as possible and messaging the rib cage.  I thought the legs would never strengthen  and they did no problem.  the foam helped the chest from flattening as much.

rubber matting  with ridges moulded in the mat so they can push on,
my fcr last didnt walk untill she was 4 weeks she was the only one in the litter and weight at birth 15ozs,she had the best supply of milk and was very lasy and laid back  pup.
just would like to know if swimming syndrome can have a result on high hips,beacuse they are not getting up and moving at a earley stage could there be a problem later the reason i ask the pup over hip score has just come back very high, i have not had a high hip score in my dogs that i have bought in and breeded this is the 1st one,

Its going well :)

I haven't tried the eggshell or foam under the mat though I have been considering some type of rubber mat. We have some rubber matting (ex-kennel) but it is completely smooth so I haven't bothered trying. One thing has crossed my mind is car mats. You used to be able to get them in a style which had hundreds of small upright 'tufts' for want of a better description. That to me would possibly replicate grass quite well and be easy to keep clean.

We have had her in the bath tub swimming and this seems a great bit of excersise. I fill the bath to a level where she can just feel the bottom and at a tempreture of 85 fahrenhite. About 5 minues at a time and we have done this twice a day. Thankfully the weather is very warm so drying off is made easier. Even so, we dry her thouroughly with towelling and whilst swimming, take care not to ruffle her fur, letting the water under it. I'm not sure if this would be sutiable on younger pups (remember she is 4 1/2 weeks now).

The best news is she is getting about really well on the grass. We have made a pen of about 8ft by 8ft. 50% of this is shaded. She can happily stagger about in there and she is now for the most part when actually moving, up on all four legs. Her ankles are still weak and thus she does look a bit ungamely. Occasionally she weill get on her rear pads and take a few well balanced steps.

A few more days of this and I think we will be looking good.

I am grateful for everyone suggestions here and hope any one else finding this thread in a moment of desperation finds it useful.

Kind regards

Lionel

P.S,, and don't waste the bath water (we are in a shortage area).. After the pup had finished I put the bitch in for a well deserved wash and cool off :) :)

You are welcome I'm glad to here your puppy is improving I've never had a swimmer thank goodness but most do seem to eventually be ok

After a week of putting 'Rosie da Pup' on the turf, making numerous pairs of hobbles and jackes, swimming in the bath tub and light physiotherapy, I am more than pleased to annouce she is up on all four paws and lopping around our garden with meritous fortitude :)

My huge thanks to those who looked in and commented here.

If I have learnt anything worth passing on from this experience it is that the whelping box surface, even the vet bed, is probably not the best surface available for pups with such difficulties. Thereafter, it is a matter of experience in being able to spot a swimmer at an early age. The signs it seems to be wary of are single pups or very small litters, where competition in the whelping box is small. I don't think over feeding is necessarily a big problem, so long as the pup isn't allowed to just sleep and lie in a manner undisturbed. It really needs a lot of input by the owner to give the stimulation provided by other pups.

Despite all the setbacks, we are slowly coming around to the concept that we may breed again from the bitch as most of what has happened can be looked at as 'one of those things'. There is a better phrase but I'm not willing to say that in public.

Huge regards

Lionel

Hi new here and was just reading this Topic ...One can use foam that looks like the bottom of a egg carton thinking
its even called egg carton foam LOL ..put it under the blanket you are using in whelping box this makes it not a leval area for the pups to sleep on ...especially if there are only a few pups ..I also use beenie babies if there is only one or 2 pups even 3 pups I toss in 3 or 4 beenie babies the tiny ones about the size of a 7 to 8 oz pup   and the pups crawl over them and are not laying flat ...Just a few Ideas I thought I would share ..you use the foam as soon as the pups are born and toss in the beenie babies dont wait till you think you see swimmers as this can actually prevent problems from even starting ...