At work we have a bitch who whelped yesterday. This bitch was MASSIVE to say the least. Her labor started as normal but the contractions were never very good and the rest time between each puppy kept getting longer with almost 4.5hours between 5th pup and 6th pup...then a gap of 8 hours then she was taken into the vets give a jab of oxytocin. The vet felt the toes of the next pup and said he would give her 30 minutes to produce. The pups legs kept emerging after each contraction but went in after it so during the next big push the vet pulled pup out (it was already gone) then he felt her belly and said no more were in there.......then a wee girl popped out as a surprise.

All pups were quite big and her belly was stretched to the limits...She had been in the early stages of labor and was a bit distressed and work was given the option of elective cesarean or natural. vet said she had good pelvis and thought she could pass a large pup so we opted to wait and see.

My question just out of curiosity (as this experience has put it in my head).....Can a bitch be too big to contract and push effectively? Whether it be volume or size of pups.  I am not saying this is the case in this instance...but was really wondering.

She is fine and so are her 7 little loafs...Mum is a Beagle and one of the girls calls her a Bagel so the theme of the litter was Bread :-)...The last little surprise pup we called Melba...and we have a Hovis, Brennan, Ormo, Veda, Ryvita and a wee Muffin...:-)

Cheers

Yes, I think this is called secondary uterine inertia, contractions start well in early labour but things get more difficult as it goes on, apparently risk factors include obesity, large pup blocking birth canal, and large litters causing exhaustion and overstretching of uterus.  Love the loaf theme by the way!!

a bagel lol what great names although need to brush up on my bread knowlege

Hi

I had a bitch who delivered one very large pup naturally and then couldnt deliver anymore. Took her to the vets who eventually did a c section and she had 8 extra large pups.

The vet said there was no room for her womb to contract so she would never had delivered them.

Also love the bread theme!!

I had a bitch some years back, a larger breed, that had a slight green discharge - took her straight to the vet, she was on day 56, obviously foetal distress and pups were all (12) delivered safely via c-section. Vet said she had been so full of puppies that her uterus was unable to contract at all.

hi im no where near as experienced as any of the other ladies but 2 years ago my girl had a litter of 14 (normal for her breed is 5-7) and she is smaller thn most all her pups where very good sizes and she managed to have them without any probs 14 hr start to finish only problem she had to begin with was getting round to clean them she was sooo big she couldnt reach bless her

Last year my ESS bitch finally delivered one pup naturally after an oxytocin injection. 3 hrs later and 2 more visits to our vet  opted for a C Section.  All 4 puppies weighed 375g each!!!!! Not bad for an ESS the size of a JR :-)
Yet her previous litter she produced 7 and they were alot smaller (unless it was the Daddys genes)

My large guarding breed bitch had secondary uterine inertia, delivered two naturally, two with oxytocin and 8 by 'c' section. Her smallest pup was 330g and heaviest 516g. She was spayed at the same time as the vet said her uterus was 'in shreds'.
She was from a small litter line and scanned for 6 so you never can tell!

I had a Chi bitch, first litter, and her contractions were really strong.  I knew after an hour that we weren't getting anywhere, so raced to the veterinary hospital.  X-ray showed 2 pups side by side in one uterine horn, just stuck there and not moving. 

After the C-section, the vet told me that the uterus was very, very stretched. 

my older bitch we always said was "too posh to push" lol

She had one pup at home naturally, the contractions started ready for delivery of the 2nd pup but after about 20 mins stopped - and nothing would get them going again (they never did seem to have the vigour of the 1st lot)

We went to the Vets and had an oxytocin jab which did give us some contractions but the puppy was just too big to be passed...ended up with a c-section and 8 puppies

I bet it was total chaos in your house with 10 puppies :-) (lovely chaos though)  :-)