With all these puppies, what could be farther from my mind (than writing an article for the newsletter)?

By Sister Cecelia

How amazing that our two young mothers are having their pups just barely two weeks apart! Gana is experienced at giving birth, having had two other litters. We know she has four puppies and are thinking we’ll be up all night, but lo and behold, it looks like her water broke in her bedroom at the end of one of our bedroom wings. So out Sr. Pat goes to the whelping room, which is all prepared with all the possible necessities for giving birth. Then we wait and wait and wait. At early evening on Wednesday the third, Gana’s water really breaks. There is no doubt this time. It is not until 11:30 when number one makes it out. By that time I have retired for the evening while thinking I could go check and see if any help is needed, but I fall asleep before I can act on the thought. When I arise at 6 the next morning, I read the note left by Sr. Pat next to the coffee maker: Gana has three male pups and one girl. Mom and pups are doing fine. Would I let Gana out to do her business? Of course! And then I check on the pups. They look just fine.

Gana with her four puppies

Since we have only one whelping room, we decide that Gana and her pups will go up to the monks on Monday the eighth. The monks and their employees will take good care of them. Sr. Pat cleans up the puppy room (whelping room). I await Hetti’s first litter. We know she will have her pups any time between Valentine’s Day and the following Saturday. On Monday Hetti is very restless but eats her breakfast. On our morning walk I give her the large plastic ball she loves to chase, carry, and chew holes in. She is all excited, but a fourth of the way on our walk, she stops and looks at me. “Let’s not go any farther” is what she seems to be thinking. “Let’s go in,” I say, and she takes off for home. She carries the ball but wants to go to the whelping room. I had introduced her to the whelping room since it was cleaned up, because I had noticed she kept going into dark corners everywhere these past few days. So, in we go. After a few minutes, she says, OK, and wants to go back into my office, where there is a red dog bed she likes.

            Before long, she gets up and is licking the clear liquid she has left on the bed! So, will we have puppies today? Out we go to the whelping room, close to 8:30 AM. I let Sr. Pat know the scoop, and she comes to check. If a shot is needed after the first pup is born and there is a delay, she will give it. I don’t give shots! An hour goes by, and Hetti’s water breaks for sure. There will be pups before another 24 hours go by. Wednesday is her 62nd day, so she is having them a few days early. She is healthy and has had no trouble eating enough to even feed eight pups, if there are that many. She has been pushing, and at 9 AM we see a black bag starting to come out. But it goes back inside. Hetti keeps regularly pushing so hard that milk drips from her teats. At 11:30 AM we decide to take her to the vets to see what might be done. The roads are icy, but a C-section is called for. By 1:30 PM there are four healthy-looking pups, even the first one, which the vet had gently extricated because its chin was caught on a bone near the opening. There was no way the others would have made their way past him. While Hetti is uncomfortable because of the incision, she is quite interested in her brood of two males and two females. The girls are both the smallest and the largest. All are over one pound, tiny, with a pink ribbon being 1.28 and the largest a green ribbon at 1.47 pounds. The colored zig-zag ribbons are placed around their necks so as they grow, their weights can be checked to make sure they are growing.  

Hetti with her four puppies

            Now it is day two, and the butterballs are hale and hearty! We give thanks to God for all the good things we experience because of raising our dogs—and how to handle the tribulations that come as well, which is all part of life!

 

Gana

Hetti