Thanks. We knew we were expecting a singleton after the ultrasound at 30 days. It was confirmed on the x-ray at day 60 which is also when we discussed with our repro vet our options. We could tell on the x-ray that he was very large, and he was also facing the wrong direction. Both of these things can cause complications during delivery. When factoring in that she just turned 5 on Dec 7 and this is her first litter so she hasn't had everything stretched out the risk of complications was even higher. So we weighed the risk of losing the pup and putting her life at risk against the risk that she would reject the pup because she wouldn't go through the bonding that happens during the natural birth process and decided that we would plan to do a c-section when her temperature dropped and the labor process had begun. She was in early labor when the c-section was done, he was born healthy and active. We had lost a pup in second litter that had gone into distress during labor when he became stuck so we really wanted to make sure that this baby didn't have that happen.
I cannot stress enough to people who are considering breeding how much you need to be prepared for when things don't go right. I have only just gotten 6 hours of sleep after about 48 hours having only 6 hours sleep. I am lucky and my husband and I can take turns sleeping but the first day was just so hard making sure he got as much colostrom as we could into him with her producing so little. Add to it that I came down with a nasty head cold on Wednesday so didn't sleep particularly well the night before he was born and I was big time exhausted. I still am but it is my shift to be up.
Thanks to everyone for sending postive thoughts our way. Rio is now willing to do some stimulating of the pup though she is still not quite sure of herself so he gets him started but then stops before he has finished so we are still helping out. She had a enough milk to fill his belly this last feeding after he nursed all 4 nipples that had milk so we are slowly improving. I just hope we continue improving.
