All’s well that ends well
That said, I’ll start this story off with the ending. Please do spend 60 seconds and watch the video. The story that follows it is not all rosy so it will be helpful to have the video of the ending firmly in your mind before you start.
Our Harley has delivered 7 healthy puppies sired by our Ryder. They are gorgeous, active, talkative and huge with 4 boys and 3 girls. Their birth weights ranged from 14oz to 1lb, 4oz with 5 at 1lb or more. To give reference, Harley‘s first litter was as small as 11 oz with only one being over 15 oz.
The story
This is a long and emotional read. Please be assured it has a reasonably happy ending and explanation if you read on.
I should start by saying Terri stayed with Harley continuously inside the pen throughout the entire process. Terri has extensive medical nursing training, some limited vet training (she is a certified Vet Assistant”) and years of experience with dogs and a kind heart.
To prepare, we have extensive supplies but the newest is our Oxygen concentrator to deliver continuous medical grade O2, a home made NICU box which is a plastic tub, with O2 hose connections, holes for ventilation and a purpose built puppy heating pad.
Terri also secured O2 masks purpose built for dogs from tiny puppies to large breed adults. A key new tool for this litter was DeLee Mucus trap. As you will see if you read on, it was this $10 tool and Terri’s quick action that saved the lives of 4 puppies.
I have always been proud of Terri but she was driven to the extreme and was tireless during this event and I could not be prouder of her.
Labor
Harley‘s X-ray from a week before labor indicated 8 to 10 puppies. She was HUGE so we expected 10. Harley began laboring at 1:30am Friday 3/12/2021. Harley insisted on standing through most of the labor. We didn’t like it and knew it would be exhausting but she did the same on her first litter and it was not a surprise.
at 7:40pm Friday evening, Enzo was born. He was a big boy at 1lb, 4oz and had a normal amniotic sack and placenta at delivery.
At 8:30pm we had our first horror. Harley delivered a fully normal looking and developed baby boy that was not breathing and no amniotic sack. He was really big . We never got his weight but he was big; so big that Harley screamed and bit Terri on the hand – hard. I had to restrain Harley until the pain passed. With the hurt hand, Terri went straight to work on the puppy. She pulled a LOT of fluids out of him using the mucus pump, rubbed him, chest compressions, flexed his body to try to jump start the lungs, worked though a gravity swing procedure to try and force more fluids out of his lungs and even tried occasional mouth-to-mouth to try and get things going. This went on for 45 minutes, but he never took a breath – he was gone. We tossed a little antibiotic ointment on Terri’s hand wound and a fresh set of gloves and waited for the next puppy; scared to death.
Harley continued to labor hard. She REALLY did not want stay in the whelping box. She pushed against Terri with all her might trying to get out but our only other choice was the bed since space was limited otherwise and we didn’t think the bed a safe place. After 90 minutes of labor, we called the emergency oncall vet but were told to let her go for another hour and if no puppy, call again and bring her in. After 120 minutes, we agreed that I should go prepare our new SUV to carry her the 25 miles to the emergency vet. At 10:20pm, while I was outside, she whelped Ranger (1lb boy). It freaked Harley out so bad, she panicked and jumped over the whelping box wall and banged herself up a little. Ranger had no amniotic sack and was covered with dark colored meconium (feces mixed with amniotic fluid) and not breathing. Terri made sure Harley was OK then immediately went to work on Ranger. She was able to save him using the mucus pump, nasal aspirator and physical manipulation.
By this time we we sure that Harley wanted nothing to do with the puppies and was so unsettled in the whelping box we were forced to let her do the rest of her labor on the bed. She was not helping clean the puppies and had no interest in them. We were horrified and beginning to think we’d be raising these puppies hand fed on our own without her help. We were also increasingly concerned we’d have to retire her after this litter if she would not be a good mother. We were really worried we’d have to tell all the remaining people on the wait list that had been waiting so very long that we’d never be able to deliver puppies for them. We had no idea why she was acting this way at this point; there was a good reason for it discovered later but that was later; for now we were tired and terrified.
At 10:40pm, Porsche was born. She was a 15 oz girl. She had no amniotic sack but was barely breathing. Terri cleared her lungs and she seemed fine.
We decided to try and put all three pups onto Harley and let them get some of her critical colostrum but Harley reacted badly and again, bit Terri’s hand, this time leaving a bleeding wound (not quite big enough for stitches but right between the fingers in a a place hard to bandage). At this point, we stop trying to put pups on the teat and instead put them all in the NICU tub with O2 and heater running.
The rest of the night is a bit of a blur but here’s the summary from our records and what I can recall. Note that every puppy from here on was born not breathing, had no amniotic sack, often no placenta and covered in meconium.
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- 11:05 pm – Lexus is born – 15oz girl brought back to life by Terri.
- 11:20 pm – Tesla is born – 1lb, 1oz girl brought back to life by Terri.
- 11:55pm – Cooper is born – 1lb, 3oz boy brought back to life by Terri.
- 12:00am – I call the emergency vet and ask to bring Harley in for a C-Section as we believed there were multiple placentas still in there and possibly more puppies. The vet advised against it since Harley seemed to be progressing and she might just get it all done without invasive surgery.
- Some time after that (details not recorded) another puppy is born that Terri cannot save.
So now we have 6 viable puppies and two that have died. Harley stopped laboring, we are all completely exhausted but we set up a bottle feeding schedule for the pups. We feed them twice at two hour intervals. At 8am we see that Harley is whining and still apparently in pain. We call the vet’s office as they are open now for Saturday business and told them we were on the way for an emergency; we didn’t give them a choice; we were coming. When we arrive at 9am they are already working two other emergencies along with normal scheduled business. Our favorite maternity vet (Dr. Christina Behrends) was in but buried so she called in her retired veterinarian father to assist. By 9:40 Harley had an Ultrasound exam and by 10:00 she was in surgery for an emergency C-section; they had found two more puppies in there!
While all this was happening, we realized that we had brought along all the puppies in the NICU box (with O2) but had not brought food so I drove to the local Tractor supply to get goats milk and some bottles. While I was out, the vet came running in with a puppy – One is alive! Aston was born via that surgery at somewhere around 11:00 am, a 14oz boy. We now have 7 viable puppies and 3 puppies that did not survive..
We got our Harley back!
When we get home, Harley is an entirely reformed dog!
After the surgical drugs wore off, she insisted on getting in the with pups. We nervously allowed it but stood watch for the first three hours straight until we felt comfortable again; even then, we stayed close and Terri slept in the pen with them. Harley has refused to leave the whelping box even to eat or drink. We’ve been bringing food and electrolyte fluids to her to keep her strength up. We convinced her to go outside two or three times in the 14 hours since we got home and I started writing this essay but she did her business and ran straight back to the box.
What happened to the puppies?
Dr Christina explained to us that the other puppy that did not survive the emergency C-Section was HUGE… like over 2lbs huge. Dr. Christina told us that there was little chance that Harley would have even been able to deliver it naturally. That one huge puppy was actually the cause of ALL out delivery problems. There are two Uterine “horns” that contain puppies. Enzo was likely in front of the giant pup and came out fine. The second pup that died in womb likely got hung up against the big baby at the juncture where the two horns come together and could not get out fast enough after the rough passage tore him away from the placenta. Every puppy after that had to fight it’s way past the giant puppy, tearing off amniotic sacks and placentas as they went. Because of all the stress, some of the puppies defecated in the uterus causing all the meconium on the puppies.
What caused Harley’s bad behavior?
Apparently the root cause for her aberrant behavior the night before was caused in no small part by the extreme pain of the big puppy and the fight going on inside her body but also by low calcium and other electrolytes. Removing the last two puppies and placentas as well as pushing therapeutic levels of electrolyte solution and calcium gel turned her around.
What did we learn?
- Trust our gut. When we thought she needed to go in for a C-Section, we should have insisted. We don’t blame Dr Christina; at all. She was not seeing what we saw and could only advise based on what we said on the phone. We should have advocated stronger and insisted but that’s on us; hard lesson learned.
- Have plenty of electrolyte powder on hand and give that to her in her water when she starts labor.
- Never again mess with an X-Ray to get puppy count a week before due date. It is seldom accurate and a waste of money and stress traveling to the vet. Instead we will invest in a good (not vet quality but good) portable ultrasound machine that will allow us to not only get a puppy count when near term but always be able to see what is still inside – no more guessing and risking mama and puppy’s lives.
- Never, ever do this without a $10 DeLee Mucus trap.
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