Waiting for the Birth of a Litter
Rest up! You are probably going to need it! Few canine mamas birth during banking hours although you can certainly tell your girl you would appreciate a daytime litter. Lol. I find the most exhausting part is waiting for labor. A dog can birth anywhere within a 10 day window….five days before her due date to five days after…so you watch her constantly. Do you leave her? Is she showing signs of imminent labor? Is she nesting which means trying to dig a burrow? That could be in your rug or on your couch. My dog tries to dig under the deck. What is her temperature? If it drops and then stays below 100 degrees, chances are puppies are coming soon. Is she panting? Restless? Whining? Not eating? You probably have puppies on the way!
Of course some dogs make it very interesting by giving you few if any signs. My dog, Jazz, is like that, so I need to be sure I have adequate sleep going into this week . If I leave the house as of tomorrow when official Puppy Watch commences, she needs to be in a contained area on camera, where I can check on her with NO outside access. I realize there could be an accident, but that is a better outcome than birthing puppies outside in late October or early November!
Before her last litter she showed no signs that today was THE DAY. Her temperature was above 100 degrees. She ate her normal breakfast. She had been nesting for over a week. Her first puppy appeared without a contraction. Just abracadabra! It was there! The next puppy showed up the same way. She was so filled with puppies, when it was time, they appeared! Now that doesn’t mean the labor was done in twenty minutes! After the first three, things slowed down to a normal pace of every 10-20 minutes. The last two showed up over two hours later than the majority of the litter.
It is a miracle….something I never get tired of witnessing…seeing those teeny helpless babies…The only thing they can do is smell their mother’s milk and barely squirm towards that smell. They are blind, deaf, and totally helpless. They need their mother for everything.
So here is hoping we have another successful litter. Jazzy is healthy, She has taken her prenatals, eats every snippet of food, and takes her daily walks. Of course the walks are shorter and she sleeps afterwards, but her pups tend to be strong and beautiful, and she is a superlative Mama. I hope to write soon and show pictures of the wee puppies!
