Brontillow

Clever Little Dog

Last night I decided not to stay up with the puppies, the lack of sleep over the past 12 days was making me feel jet lagged and I was struggling to function during the day. I needed to sleep in my bed. The doors were left open with a baby gate to stop Willow coming along to the bedrooms. Brontë and her puppies were settled in their crate for the night.
At 4:45am I heard Willow making a noise, between a yap and a cry, so I went straight along to see her. It was like a scene from Lassie, she was running to and fro between me and her puppy room. When I got there I saw that she had dug her vet bed up and three of her puppies had gone underneath it. She wanted me to get them out for her! 
As soon as I put the bedding straight and the puppies all together she jumped back in her box and started to feed and clean them.
What a clever little dog.

 

Brontë's puppies are one week old

Bronte's puppies are one week old today. She is a fantastic mother, we have never seen her as happy and animated. It's a joy to see her so fit and healthy after giving birth, she loves being able to run around and play in the garden on a quick break from looking after her puppies

Brontë and her puppies have been moved from their quiet room at the other end of the house into the living room. I've taken them out of the whelping box into a crate to keep them safe. Half of the floor is covered with a heat pad so that the puppies can keep warm but can move off the heat if they want to. So much better than an overhead heat lamp.

We have a new photograph album for photographs of the puppies as they grow, there is a link on the right hand side column or you can click HERE

Willow's puppies are here

Willow had her puppies yesterday, she has three boys and a girl

After sitting up with her for two nights, she went into labour early morning and had her first puppy, a boy at 9am. He seemed a bit of a tight squeeze and her contractions were not as strong as I expected to see which worried me slightly. After an hour and ten minutes she started pushing again and the next puppy's head appeared and stuck. Despite her pushing she coudn't deliver and after a few tense minutes we decided to shoot straight down to the vet, in twenty years of dog breeding I had never seen anything stuck so tight.

The vets at Lady Dane Vetinary Surgery, Faversham, were on standby and waiting at the entrance for us, I had everything ready for an emergency and we arrived about ten minutes after the puppy had emerged. The vet tried for over fifteen minutes to free the puppy, his legs were facing backwards along his chest and tummy so there was nothing to pull on to get him out. It was very traumatic and something I hope never to see again, poor Willow was squealing with pain as the vet manouevered the puppy out and despite the efforts of the nursing staff he sadly could not be revived. 

Now we were faced with the possibility of a caesarean but our vet wanted to wait to see what happened with the next puppy. They offered us a private room with bedding and towels for Willow, rather than go home and maybe have to come back again. She gave birth naturally to a girl and both live puppies were feeding. All seemed well but rather than send us home the lovely vets said that they had no need of the room for the rest of the day and we were welcome to stay as long as we wanted. We stayed for nearly seven hours, they scanned her to check that the remaining puppies had heartbeats and weren't distressed, we had vets, nurses and reception staff peeping in to see the puppies and checking we were all OK. I don't think the royal prince had better care and attention than these puppies. They certainly saved Willow from a major operation and worse, maybe death for her and her puppies. I can never thank them enough for the kindness and support they gave us.

All of the puppies are feeding well, Willow is a perfect Mummy and I feel very lucky to have them all at home. 

 

Our New Arrivals

Brontë's temperature dropped significantly on Thursday evening and she refused food for the first time ever so we expected that her puppies would be born over the next 24 hours. I went to bed very early so that I could get up to sit with her when the family went to bed. She was digging her bed and very restless from about 2am. We use absorbant mattress pads because they wash and dry easily, I bought cheap ones and she bit right through them but they are still better than the disposables and cleaner than newspaper.

 

Contractions started at 4:40am and her first puppy, a boy, was born at 5:50am. He presented head first and was out of his sac so we kept hold of the umbilical cord until the afterbirth was delivered. Poor Brontë squealed a little, I think more from shock than anything else but that was the only sound she made, bless her. She was as good as gold and is a fantastic Mummy.

 

Brontë cleaning her puppy before he suckles for the first time

 

Brontë's second puppy was another boy, he was born in his sac with the afterbirth but she didn't seem very sure what to do, we broke open the sac for him to breathe and then pulled him round to her for cleaning. She seemed quite surprised that there was another one!

 

The third puppy was a girl

 

Number four and another girl

 

I have more videos to upload but our broadband is slower than the old dial up so I will add them as they upload and edit this post. Watch this space.....

The Waiting Game

We are all ready now for the impending arrival. Although we have a whelping kennel outside it was designed with our German Shepherd Dogs in mind so we have decided to whelp Brontë and Willow in the house. They have not had puppies before and we want to be close to them at all times for the first few weeks to look after them all to the best of our ability.

We have a little room off our living room that used to be a porch, I used it for a craft nook and then a little study area. I have emptied it out and scrubbed it with bleach then steam cleaned it to make it as safe as possible. I put some new cushion flooring over the wood floor for warmth and ease of cleaning then used a kitchen trolley from Ikea for storing clean towels, terry squares and a set of scales. There are some shelves for first aid, paperwork and cups of coffee! I'm still waiting for an electric heat pad and some absorbent mattress pads to be delivered, I also have puppy milk and feeding bottles on their way from Royal Canin just in case. My lists are made and ticked off and I'm trying to get as much sleep as I can so that I can sit up all night if I need to.

We are going to try to set up a webcam for a live feed but we haven't done it before so we are waiting for some help. We have several puppies ordered and have met some lovely prospective owners when they came to meet the girls, I hope they will be able to watch their puppies birth.

Watch this space!

 

Post by Brontillow Wire Haired Dachshunds.

Preparing for puppies

With about twelve days to go, Brontë is slowing down a little and looking uncomfortable. She's huge already, I've cut the grass really short so that her tummy doesn't get wet when it rains. She likes to stretch out on the sofa but she's getting too heavy to be jumping off now.

I spent a lot of time looking at different whelping boxes, trying to find something that was affordable, easily cleaned and light enough for me to move on my own. In the end we decided to make our own, it was a steep learning curve but I'm very happy with the finished box. We were lucky to have lovely sunny weather so that we could work outside
Brontë seems happy with it too! We cut the doorway right down to the base as we were worried that her tummy and teats would catch and get sore but I made three sections to slot into the gap to stop puppies escaping later.