My clever girl was booked in for a c section tomorrow as she had just the one puppy and as she had inertia last time and lost her first puppy, I wanted to be on the safe side as the vet also said that the puppy was too big to be born naturally.
She ate her breakfast this morning we had no scratching up or looking like she was in labour apart from a little bit of panting so I thought that she may be in the very early stages, but as she was happy to run around I thought she may be able to go until the morning.
20 minuets later her beautiful puppy was born!! she done it all on her own while I was out of the room, I am so proud of her, and the puppy is not that huge a normal size for a the breed.
I have been giving her the Fit and Fertile "Help to Whelp" for the last 8 days, maybe that worked, I will certainly use it again.
Lesley

Congratulations, its great when things work out better than expected :-)

Thankyou, she is a great Mum. and loves her baby.
Lesley

Congratulations xxx

Massive crongrats! I too use Help to Whelp and have found it works wonders.
Please drop Keith a call/email and let him know your success :-)

Aww well done. Might get some when Keith scans my girl.

Thank you all, I will email Keith and let him know, I am still in a state of shock I can only think it was the help to whelp, Meme (the Mum) seems so well and happy, she had such a rough time last time that I was in two minds wether to try again.
Just a bit worried about mastitis as she had that last time too, not badly and it quickly cleared up with treatment, I will keep a very close eye on her.
Does anyone know if there is any way of avoiding mastitis apart from moving the pup around to different teats.
Lesley

Well done, clever girl.

Congrats on pup

Keep an eye on the teats and massage.  If you feel any hardening, its probably mastitis so you need to massage and get pup on it to break it up.  My girl had a sigleton and I had no issues of it.  She went round a few of the nipples, the ones she didn't semed to go back to normal.

Thinking of trying the help to whelp, never used anything before but we are expecting a very large litter so it may help

It is really worth a try, my girl and puppy are so happy and contented, Meme was exhausted after her last two litters, both with long labours.
This time she is full of energy. the difference in her is amazing. I have contacted Fit and Fertile to let them know how pleased I am.
Good luck with yours.
Lesley

Only used help-2-whelp once and my bitch delivered two pups normally then secondary inertia set in and the other three were delivered by emergency c-section. I was told on here that it may have had an adverse effect as it is calcium ion based and that by giving calcium supplements it can result in the bitch not making enough calcium of her own to sustain contractions. Who knows? But I wouldn't use it again. Glad others have had a positive experience with it though.

I questioned the calcium content and was told that starting so close to whelping date would not affect the bitches natural ability to process calcium.

I also give Calciboost hourly[and vetdrops/nutrodrops] during labour to keep levels up as suggested by mentors in the past.

I have spoken to Angelika von Heimendahl today who runs Cambridge reproductive services and is a guest speaker at the KC breeder symposium.
She told me that feeding any kind of calcium supplement in pregnancy is not necessary..if anything it can be quite dangerous. By supplementing calcium you are affecting the dogs natural ability to produce/absorb calcium following whelping which in extreme cases can lead to eclampsia.
She said that it far better and safer to feed a quality complete puppy food from the third tri-mester of pregnancy and into nursing as this will be a much more balanced diet.
Essentially she said that best case you are wasting your money / worst case risking your dogs health!

we have decided not to use help to whelp, was also worried about the extra calcium, we raw feed and usually stop all bone 10 days before to encourage the bitch to produce calcium naturally, never had to give extra calcium before or after whelping so will continue as we have done in the past.