I have a large breed bitch who is 64 days pregnant. She started panting at 9am this morning and kept going till 8pm. She then had a gush of water, got in her bed and started nesting then laid down and went to sleep. I called the vet who told me that dogs waters dont break and to just let her sleep. Can anyone shine some light on what might be happening ?

From what I've read, there is indeed a water sack that comes before the first puppy; this can sometimes break in the bitch's birth canal instead. That is the waters breaking. After the waters have broken, the first pup should come soon, according to BOB.

Are you sure it wasn't a muscus plug?

I'm sorry but your Vet does not seem to know much about normal whelping.  After the Water bag appears/waters break there should be a puppy within 2 hours maximum.

If not your bitch could have uterine inertia and the pups and she could be in danger.

I am gobsmacked, but guess I shouldn't be!  Vets are not breeders.  If her waters have broken, as you put it, she should have a pup quite soon.  If she hasn't your bitch is in danger.

What on earth did he think it was?  I agree with the others, she should be having her pups or you should take her back to the vets as she's in trouble and may need a c-section.  Vets!!!!

I have spoken to the vet again as now she has a browny red watery discharge and he said as long as she isnt straining I should leave her and call back in an hour. She is panting again but no pushing.

If nothing has happened by now get her to the vets.  I was in a very similar situation to you a week and a half ago, bitch wasn't distressed, but had water sack then ages.  Eventually a puppy, but then very little pushing etc...  Then next water sac before next pup, and nothing again.  I thought she might just be taking her time but my gut said check.

Called the e-vets to see if they would start with an xray to see what was happening inside.  If all was fine it would be worth the cost, and if it wasn't well - then we'd figure out what to do next.

Turns out the best move I made was to do that - her second pup was lying sideways across the birth canal and blocking the 5 others behind it!  We were lucky and everybody survived the section including mum and they are all doing fantastic...  But who knows what kind of result I'd have had if I'd waited much longer - I'd already waited longer than I was comfortable with (because mum wasn't distressed and there was nothing bad coming out of her).

Sometimes it's best to go with your gut - better safe than sorry. 

Thank you everyone. I have 5 healthy boys and 5 healthy girls. Sadly I lost 2 and had to rush one to the vet because mum had bit the umbilical cord to low. I am shattered and hope there arent anymore to come x

Congratulations x

It's nerve wracking isn't it?!

Sorry for the two you lost and hope the others thrive.

li

Not being funny but if I were you I'd be changing vet or ensure you see another one at the practice who knows what they are talking about.

Congratulations and RIP 2 babies xx

I'm so sorry for the two you lost - it's hard.  I lost 2 my first whelping as well.  But you have a wonderful result with the rest and here's to better days soon.  Try and get some rest - if you've got someone to watch them for a couple of hours - you'll need it!!  It will still hurt losing the two, but you will feel so much better if you can get some sleep soon.

Hugs and congrats on your 10 babies!!

She ended up having another stillborn pup 4 hours later and then at 6pm out popped another healthy boy, I couldnt believe it. I am so annoyed with my vet who was quite patronising and absolutely no use at all. I have spent a fortune with them trying to make sure I done evrything correctly. This is the first time I have use this forum and you were all so much help. Thanks again. If you have any advise for aftercare of mother and pups it would be gratefully recieved.

I know its a bit shutting the door after the horse has bolted but if you dont already have a copy of "the book of the bitch" then order it today, its invaluble. Everyone on here is fantastic if you are wanting to learn.

Hope mum is now settled with pups. And you are making enquiries about a different vet ;-)

More experienced breeders will be along soon. Do you have a mentor at all? Its a bit late really but if you can find someone in your breed to help you its definatly worth it.

I don't blame you - such a shame that your first time has had this experience.  I think when it's all done I'd be starting to shop round for another vet that you can build up some mutual respect and trust with.

The members here are wonderful with a lot of combined knowledge, so don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions.  Book of the Bitch is good, hopefully as above you also have a good mentor/support system in the breed as well.

Keep us posted on how the pups are doing.  I hope your trials are over now, and it's all straightforward from here.  YIKES 11 large breed pups - you're going to have your hands full soon!

Yes definitely time to look for another vet, sorry you lost 3 pups because of poor advice from your vet.

The dam of one of my bitches only had 2 pups in each of 3 litters and they were surrounded by fluid filled sacs not just the one that came out first so I wouldn't feel concerned if I was to find that in her daughter.

Hopefully things will be plain sailing from now.

If you do a search on here you will find info on puppy rearing,when to worm,when to wean and what with etc. Make sure Mum is getting plenty of fluids and calcium rich foods,as well as her normal puppy kibble increased, as she will become dehydrated and low in calcium [eclampsia]with so many large mouths to feed.

Puppies are doing really well, poor mum is really worn out but is being a great mum. She is quite fussy with food but  have had loads of good advise from the owner of the stud we used and so have ordered some things off the internet that should give her a bit of an appetite. I have ben giving her lots of chicken as she seems to really enjoy this. I am amazed that all these little babies managed to fit inside her, a true miracle has occurred, I dont know how I am going to let them go, I feel like they ae my grand children.

Bless her, i had to hand feed my bitch in the whelping box (most do this) for the first week or so, RC starter mousse was a godsend for me and i also made her up some groul (sp) there is a recipe on here for it if you do a search, PM me if you cant find it and i'll try and look it up. I bet your exhasted too.

Are you soaking her food.  I put loads of water into the kibble so that it is virtually a mush as their mouths can get quite sore from the cleaning.  This also keeps up the liquid intake.  The first few days especially they will not want to leave the whelping box and I feed my girls 4 - 6 times a day in their beds.

She is fine about leaving the pups as I think she trusts us completely and she often comes and lays with us but when babies start to wake up, she goes over and cleans and feeds them. Could I ask one more question, Should she be bleeding quite heavily, as she has quite thick dark blood coming away, and if this is normal, how long should it go on.

I would encourage her not to leave the pups at all (except for a dash for a comfort break) as those first days with pups suckling virtually constantly is what will bring in enough milk for the pups.  If need be go and sit by her so she doesn't have a clash of loyalties.

Normally for the first three days I need a lead to get the bitch out of her whelping box.  With that number of pups someone should be feeding all the time at this stage.  After about the fifth day if warm the bitch may lie outside the box, but should not want to leave pups out of sight.

If you find no-one is then find the smallest pups and put them on while the others sleep.  You should be weighing daily at this stage and should identify each puppy as an individual (I use a strand of different coloured wool roudn each pups neck, knotted leaving a tail of two inches, so you can monitor things so no-one starts to slip behind.

After a week if all goes well you can weigh every other day, and then every few days just to make sure the rate of weight gain is increasing steadily.  Once you find the rate of gain is starting to level off/slow is the time to introduce weaning foods, which is likely to be at about 2 1/2 weeks, or if she is full of milk 3 weeks.

As for the bleeding/discharge (the lochia) as in humans this can go on in reducing amounts for many weeks.  have had bitches loosing up to around 12 weeks.  As long as there is no bad smell indicating infection then it is normal, heavier with more puppies as there are more placental sites to heal.

My lovely girl wont stay in the whelping box at all, she just lays outside of it and I just rotate pups all day and my husband stays up and does the same all night. I think there are just to many for her to deal with all at once so she looks after about 4 at a time, hope this will work ok, I guess each bitch is different.

Keep a careful eye on temperature in the whelping box, warm enough for pups but not too hot.  Bitches can get too hot, but so can pups once their systems are able to regulate their temperature better. 

Rule of thumb is they huddle they are cold, if they spread out they are warm enough, and if they spread out and cry and have very red mucosa and feet they are too hot.

I read the first post and felt like crying!! What is it with vets??!!! Absolutely maddening!! Now I remember why I stopped working at several practices!! How very dangerous not to know about fluid sacs around pups, I sometimes wonder how they get out of college??

Any ole hoo, glad you got GOOD advice fron people on here as that vet is as good as a chocolate teapot!! Hope the pups are all doing well and your girl as well. Sad to lose 3 pups but considering the lack of decent vet care during the pregnancy you've done well to make good common sense decisions and saved others.

My bitch has just had her first litter (my second) and she also spent a lot of time out of the whelping box. She would happily feed pups but seemed more comfortable in between times lying in the separate partitioned area of the box. She panted a lot, which I read would happen, and was off her food for probably the first 10-14 days which really worried me until I read on here that their mouths can be sore from cleaning the pups and also that eating the afterbirths would also sustain her for a while. So it was steak, roast chicken, fresh fish, raw meat all hand fed to her plus any soaked puppy food I could tempt her to eat (not much at all for quite a while, think she preferred the delicacies lol). She didn't like the gruel recipe but would also have scrambled eggs, rice pudding etc. I was very worried about eclampsia but we are now at 6 weeks old and I can see my nights on the sofa will finally come to an end in the next fortnight or so. She had 8 pups, which are a lovely lively handful now, I really wish you well with your 11. It will go too quickly!

Hi. Not been on for a while so just seen your post and have homed in on the bleeding. Hopefully she isn't now, but if she is still bleeding heavily I wouldn't hesitate to be checked over. Not to alarm you, but my bitch was bleeding heavily after her pups born in May. My breeder friend/mentor wasn't unduly concerned nor was my vet who I spoke to on the phone 2 & 3 days after pups born. Upshot was a week after pups born she was having emergency surgery, i was very very lucky she survived, she was on antibiotics for 9 weeks all to the tune of £1,000. You know your dog if you're not comfortable get her checked. I wish I'd followed my gut feeling & got her in 3 days earlier.

Oh dear, I am worried now. Will call the vet in the morning although I am not confident in their answers now anyway.

If it is similar amount a womans monthly flow then it is not a worry, it should not come in a continuous stream, more like when in season but darker blood often coagulated and mucusy.

To be honest if that vet didn;t know about a bitches waters then they are even less likely to know what is a normal post whelping flow/loss.

It is not  heavy continuous and is dark red and sticky but not smelly and when pups are suckling she seems to bleed quite alot when laying down. Will call vets anyway and see what they say.

It sounds like what's normal after giving birth.  My girl is coming up on three weeks and is mostly done, but still gets a few sticky red strings.  Each bitch is different though.  Sometimes you have to go with your gut and be better safe than sorry (trust me I know this from experience), but it does sound normal.  But if you have any doubts ask the vet (preferably not the same one you spoke to when she was in labour).

I dont know anything about welping but a human women breast feeding a baby helps the wound contract quicker. So as the baby suckles the womb contracts, hence you bleed more Whilst breast feeding, It sounds like thats what is happening in your bitch (but I am only saying about humans NOT dogs xxxxx)
Lea

My bitch bled for 10-14 days after having her litter if that is any help. It's hard to say if it's excessive, isn't it, when you don't know what is 'normal' and it is personal to each bitch anyway.

I posted the other day about my bitch who is still losing bloody mucus after 8 weeks.

It is still early days re the bleeding, she had a large litter and all 14 of those placental beds have to heal over and as the pups suckle the uterus contracts to expel the blood[I'd be more worried if there was no blood loss]to get back to it's normal size.

Provided she has no raised temp and the discharge isn't smelly I wouldn't worry.

I hope her appetite picks up because she needs that extra nutrition to feed the pups,sustain herself and not get eclampsia due to her calcium dropping dangerously low over the next few weeks.

Keep us posted on how she is doing

Sorry, not meant to worry you it was said as you have concerns. I would far rather you had a 'wasted' check up than go through what we did. I too took advice on this forum & got similar replies (I am not saying I depended on that advice, I had an expperienced breeder of over 40yrs who saw my bitch & was telling me rhe same. It is hers & the vets advice I acted on :-( )When it boils down to it only you know your bitch & your level of concern. If you're not worried, then don't :-)

Provided she has no raised temp and the discharge isn't smelly I wouldn't worry.

Sadly not necessarily so. My bitch had a temp ranging from normal to raised - as I was bothered I was monitoring temperature on a regular basis, I might have only taken it the once - when it was normal :-( also wasn't smelly, nor was it a continuous steam of blood.

Trialist what was the problem that required the bitch to need surgery?

I called vets and they said the same as all of you. Watch her temperature and make sure the blood doesnt get smelly and actually I think the bleeding is reducing a bit today. You have all been so brilliant x

Thanks for the update

Pleased the vet isn't concerned  :-)

Rhodach - Accute metritis :-(

My girl had 15 pups earlier this year ( one stillborn ) and the bleeding went on for several weeks. Everyone said it was because of the large number of puppies as has been said here. She was fine and dandy but if she had acted ill I would hae got her to vet straight away.
I think it is normal but I would watch behaviour etc
Good luck with your babies.
Diane

I am loathe to come back on this thread, but it will be viewed in the future by people seeking an answer. As I did earlier in the year.

We've established there isn't a problem with OPs bitch - that's great.

BUT continual bleeding IS NOT always the norm and NOT always something to be dismissed as OK. To have a life threatening illness DOES NOT always mean your bitch will present as being ill. Nor does it ALWAYS mean your bitch will show a temperature when you actually take it.

To suggest otherwise would be misleading & downright dangerous. I am sure no one on CD would wish either :)

> I called vets and they said the same as all of you

Have you changed your vet?  The first one gave you such terrible advice...

> To suggest otherwise would be misleading & downright dangerous. I am sure no one on CD would wish either

Which is why I said that at the end of the day you have to go with your gut and better safe than sorry.  (I know your comment wasn't necessarily about mine, but just to say there were some with balance).

When I was going through my recent whelping there were little things that could have been normal, but seemed a bit off (dogs don't read the books you know), but the bitch wasn't in distress, there was nothing coming out to say there was anything wrong, but my gut said something was wrong so we took a trip to the e-vet to get an xray as a starter.  If it turned out nothing was wrong it was money well spent, if there was then we were at the right place.  As it happened she had a pup sideways blocking the birth canal.  All survived, but who knows how long we could have gone on and how many we could have lost.

I noticed on a friend's puppycam that her bitch was losing a lot more blood at 10 days than I've seen in my two litters of the same breed, so I rang her ask her to check it out.  It was her first litter.  I said it 'could' be normal for her bitch, but might be worth having her checked (it could also have looked worse on the puppycam than in real life).  Turned out to be nothing, just normal for that bitch, but if you have any doubts at all it's always best to check.  At the end of the day my girl comes first.

Could not agree more but you have to make the decision. If in doubt see the vet although as has already been said here - they may not always make the best decision so you have to push if you feel unhappy.
Nothing to do with whelping actually but twice I have sought a different opinion and it has turned out that if I had not pushed for it and received different treatment  I could have lost the dog in question so go with your instinct.
Diane

I had the same situation with Lexi's third and last litter, first pup shot out into my hands, and then the bitch was extremely distressed (now this bitch was one excessively distressed by whelping compared to the norm anyway), but this was off even for her and with her previous litters pups arrived very quickly one after another.

After an hour of virtually keeping her in the whelping box by force, I knew something was not progressing right, she ended up with a C section, for the remaining 4 pups, one of which was malpresented.

This is where knowing what is normal generally (experience of many whelpings, yours or a mentor known to the bitch) and what is normal for your bitch/breed re signs of distress, length of labour etc.

Some exellent advice on this thread i have to say.

Thank you to all that take the time to give their advice on here :)