My girl was due on Tuesday 16th next week and was re scanned on day 55 ( monday past) she was showing 1 pup with heartbeat and spine etc. She was in the house at night on wednesday night and only let out for half an hour on thursday morning, I went to work for a few hours and she was then left in the the dining room where her whelping box is set up.  I came home to find small amount of dark discharge (greeny/black)  on the wooden floor, there was a bit coming from her vulva as well.  Unfortuantly my vet was out on an emergency operation and  I had to see an alternative vet, he performed an xray and saw no puppy and she had also stopped producing the discharge at this point . He said that the only explanation was that she could have expelled it and possibly eaten the evidence.  I have searched the garden and dining room and there was absolutely no sign of anything. The discharge on the wooden floor was just a bit where she had been lying down (its a light maple floor and shows dirt easily).  The discharge had increase last night and she was producing milk, took her this morning to my own vet and again saw nothing on the scan, he agreed with the explanation of the previous vet and has put her on a course of antibiotic as a precaution, I have also got them to do a white blood cell count to see if there is any infection.  He does not believe that she could have absorbed in such short period of time and so late on in pregnancy.  I do find the whole thing hard to believe but what other explanation could there be? Has anyone else experienced anything like this? My breeder has never had such a thing happen in all her years breeding and is just as shocked as I am! 

  

I don't know, sounds very odd, but just wanted to say that the greenish black discharge is the normal discharge when bitches give birth. One of mine had ten pups on Tuesday and she is still stained green from it all as I've not wanted to bath her. I keep finding green splashes in all sorts of places -even up on my window! I had to wash the vetbed twice to get the green out. All those pups were born alive.

yes the green colour is what the bitch has afrter bith , im so sorry to hear what as happend :( , was this her 1st litter ? x

yes the discharge is what comes after birth , it sticks like tar to there coat . What a shame , so sorry to hear this , how is your girl doing now? x

What a shame. She defiantely gave birth by your description. Hows your girl doing?  x

That does sound like whats happened. Bless her, I hope she gets over it soon
I dont know why but everyone I know who has had only 1 puppy has had problems with it and its died or it has been still born.. (obviously this doesnt happen for every only puppy).. but its interesting..

Thanks for all of your concern, I really appreciate it.

She has never shown any signs throughout all of this of illness or any change in personality , I have alway watched he very closely and  monitered this pregnancy very carefully due to the fact that she was only showing one puppy and this was her first litter. I still find it difficult to believe that she could of given birth in such a short period of time and removed all evidence, the one thing the vet did say is that it was unlikely that the pup would have been alive 5 days early and my dates where very accurate due to progesterone testing.  I dont think we will ever know what has happened here, but I do think that there can be probems with large breeds having 1 puppy, when their breed average is 8.

3 years ago one of my girls litter died, we had her scanned at 5.1/2 weeks which showed live puppies, took her back 2 weeks later because I knew something was wrong, no discharge just instinct told me something wasn't right, she was scanned and no signs of pups at all.....they had previously picked up 7 on the scan, spines etc.  Three days later she started with the green discharge, this went on for around 18 hours before she started producing mummified pups. 

We had a singleton last year, a very healthy 1lb pup, so singletons don't always end in disaster, but because there is only one, sometimes there's not enough hormone to trigger labour and before you know it the pup has died.

Indeed, an only pup shouldnt have any less chance of arriving safely and in good health as a pup born from a litter.
In my breed there was a champion who was a singleton, Ch.Neutrino Anlic. So obviously no problems with him! ;-) :-D

My bitch's first litter was only 3, the contractions started but remained very light, she never progressed and went for c section.  None of the pups survived. Her 2nd litter of 9 were all born naturally and were all very strong at birth, all survived.  From my very limited experience of 3 litters I would be inclined also to feel that a small number of pups can prevent contractions for continuing correctly, maybe there not being enough pups to stimulate the labour.  What do the more experienced breeders of this forum feel?

> the vet did say is that it was unlikely that the pup would have been alive 5 days early

Puppies are viable from a week before due date and I have had more than one litter born four or five days before the due date.

It is not unheard of for a bitch to kill and eat her whelps with the confusion of birth,a nd they can have a pup with almost no notice.  My Jozi had one in minutes from her waters breaking in the kitchen four days before her due date.  I had to rush her upstairs with the pups legs hanging out.  On her own she could easily have produced the pups and disposed of the evidence in a couple of hours.

The only thing that would contadict the theory that she expelled the pup would be that, when I took her into the vet, he gave her an internal exam and she was very small and tight.  If she had expelled pup I would imagine the cervix would be more open and also I have light wooden floors which show dirt easily, surely there would have been some evidence???  However after this experience, I would be more inclined to make sure the dog is not left alone at all for at least a week before due date..   

No I have NO experience of welping but a thought.
Have you seen anything in her pooh??????
My mate had a terrier that ate one of her pups at days old and it came out the other end :( :(
Also, I dont know if this is possible, but could she have had the discharge but the pup still hiding from scanner????
Would an Xray pick up an unborn nearly full term puppy better???
These are just things I am questioning, but as I have ABSOLUTELY NO experience of welping I have no idea!!
I hope your girl gets back to pre welp soon :) :)
Lea :)

> Have you seen anything in her pooh??????

There is no change in her pooh and you would think that after birth would would give the runs or something. She had both xray and scan and showed nothing and she is looking slimmer today, although she wasnt showing much anyhow.

I don't know if this is of any use at all, but I've recently had an interesting litter with a cat. Queen definitely pregnant, and a 5 ½ weeks of pregnancy she started bleeding. A lot -BUT I dare say had I not been there at the time, she may well have cleaned it all up and I'd never have noticed. I took her to the vet who said the kittens would be dead, gave her antibiotics, said wait for nature to take its course as she will expel the dead kittens.

We NEVER saw any dead kittens. Furthermore, after 10 weeks, she gave birth to 3 healthy, live kittens. (Now 2 ½ weeks old.) But FOUR afterbirths. So she clearly lost one kitten at 5 weeks already. Had she only carried the one, I would guess that it would have been possible for me to not notice anything, and at a later date she would just have expelled the afterbirth and nothing else.
Edited to say: I mean ten weeks after mating, so 5 weeks after the bleed.

when my girl had her 1st litter she gave birth to 9 pups i died at birth and she gave birth to 3 empty sacks too ,she didnt bleed at any time ,but the sacks where intacked when they came out ?

To be save I would assume she is still pregnant as I think often so far on a singleton could be missed.

Has anyone taking her temp to see what it is this would be a go indication as to whether or not she still carries anything?  After whelping them seem to go back to their "not in whelp/pregnant" normal temp.

We have had a number of dogs have them 7 days early and they have been fine and lived a full healthy life.  Not sure where your vet gets that a pup can't survive if it's 5 days early?

I agree and to be honest I disagreed with him on that point at the time.  I dont think that vets have the same knowledge on breeding that experienced breeders do and this is why this is a great site for getting the information based on past experiences.