Our bitch is due to whelp this week (she is 64 days from first mating and 60 from last) but she has done nothing but sleep. I don't mean just an ordinary lazy dog, i mean totally flat out for hours and hours.

We weren't too concerned, thinking that she is just gathering her forces, but yesterday she started shredding her bed and panting heavily. We thought, "this is it" but, nothing happened. She just went to sleep. This is only a very brief description of her behaviour, she has been shredding on and off since tuesday but yesterday with all the heavy panting i thought she must do it.

I have been taking her temp for the last fortnight and her base line reading is 37.8 c and although this has fluctuated a bit it has been fairly set. Yesterday her temp dropped to 37.22 and then 36.95. You can see why we though we were on.

Today, more shredding and panting then long bouts of sleeping. Temp still low 37.25. She has started refusing much food (v.unusual!)
we have tried walking her slowing around the garden but she is very reluctant.

any ideas? is this normal or should we be worried? none of our other bitches have been like this before.

My bitch was excactly like this this time around. :) She finally gave birth on day 65. A friend of mine said bitches who take their time like that often end up with mainly dog pups. and sure enough, even though it must be an old wives' tale, we had 4 dogs and 2 bitches.

My bitch had her last litter naturally on Day 68 from the first mating (66 from 2nd) and had 3 bitches and 2 dogs. :)

Since i wrote the orginal post she has been frantically tearing at her bed and pushing herself against the sides of the box. But now? yep, she's flat out and snoring  aaarrrraaaghhh (yet another night on the settee!)

As she is not having contractions i'm not too worried (hence why i haven't rung the vet) but i was wondering if the sleeping is normal. Do you think i get her walking around the garden (as when she comes in from this she does lots of ripping up) or let her snooze?

(glad one of us is getting some sleep! :D)

Walking her around should do no harm - after all, it's what they recommend for human mothers-to-be to help things get a move on.

Hopefully you should be seeing those pups in the next couple of day and yes it will be interesting to see if the boys out number the girls!!

Good luck hope all goes well - had my litter just over a week ago :)

Keep us all up to date with the news
Suzi

Must say, this thing about male litters being slower is new to me, but i can see where the idea comes from! ;-) hope it's not all dogs though as we have bred this litter to get a bitch to show :rolleyes:

i think i will get my shoes on and drag her round the garden a bit :D

BTW how are your pups Suzi? :-)

any news yet ????? im pacing about watching this thread !!!! :D

the puppies are doing great all doubled their birth weight now - just waiting for their eyes to open sometime this week so that should be fab - the boys are massive already and the girls are not far behind we have one small one who weighs just 514g now and the boys are coming in around 750g so you can see the difference :)

Hope you do well in the next few days
Suzi

Any joy yet??

Weeelllll........ *deep breath, long story!*

I was going to post yesterday but i was just too tired! After posting on here on sunday i spent yet another night on the settee up and down checking on Sarah-Jane :rolleyes: By yesterday morning she was looking really like she was going to do it. 6.30am she started to have noticable contractions, 10 mins apart. By 8am she was straining on and off and at 9.50 she had dog pup! :-) Hooray!

So, wait for the others now i thought, (as she was still huge and i could see more in there) anyway time went on and she was sleeping (of course) i was beginning to get worried until at 12 she had another dog; dead. :-( It didn't have any bag on it.

At 2.30 we rang the vet as she hadn't had anymore and was continuing to sleep. He came at 3pm and gave her a shot of Oxytocin and left 2 more for us (to give to the bitch, not actually for us! :D although by this time i was falling on my feet having had about 3hrs sleep in the last 5 days:D) The vet said she shuld have a pup by 3.30 but if not give her another jab at 4. No pup so at 4.30 we gave her the next Oxytocin and another at 6pm. No pup by 6.30 so she had to go in and have a caesarian.

She had the section at 7pm last night and came home at 8.30. She had one pup stuck in her pelvis but he was still alive :-) and so were 4 others behind :-) but one boy was dead :-(

Sooo after all that we have 4 dogs and 2 bitches. All a good weight (1lb +) and sucking ok.

To add another twist to the whole 'experience' she is not keen on the pups. The first pup she had outside on the patio (in the 10 secs it took me to get the post in :rolleyes:) and when i came in she was sat in her box exactly as i left her but i heard some mewing and looked outside and sure enough there was the pup on the gravel with cord and placenta still attached. When i showed it to her she couldn't have been less interested but did allow him to suck. When she had the dead one she also had that outside (but with me in attendance) and as soon as he was out she went back into her box without a second look, leaving me trying to revive him.

She just wants to get to our other dogs all the time. We only let her out for the second pup to see if it would encourage her. I half think that she was stopping the pups herself as she didn't want to have them indoors. If she was by the door wanting to go out and i didn't let her she would pant, take a deep breath and lie down and go to sleep.:rolleyes:

Sorry for the long winded explanation :D

Just realised, it was a mostly male litter, both dead pups were dogs so final count was  2 bitches and 6 dogs!

So sorry to hear you lost a couple of pups; I hope Mum takes to the others soon and that they all thrive. 

I'd love to see the pups, any photos yet??? 

Best Wishes,
Helen (and Earl) xxxx

Lots of photos but don't know how to put them on here. :-)

Congratulations on your litter. There are no facilities to add photos to the forum, but you can apply for Advanced membership. If you need details, please email me.