Chapter 2 - Arrival of the puppies

Now I had to get prepared for the arrival of the puppies. My family came up for an early Christmas celebration, and when they left I worked into the early hours to convert the dinning room into the whelping room.  I laid industrial lino over my dining room floor; set up the whelping box with heat pad and heat lamp; arranged my equipment table and set up my trusted camp bed. Everything was sterilised with Formula H, and I bought in piles of newspapers, clean towels and a massive roll of vet bed. Puppy milk and sterilised bottles were on standby, the weighing scales & face clothes were all ready. By the morning my dining room had become a luxury ‘Whelping Palace’, it looked like Maternity Ward 10!

Countdown to the Due Date

And as D-Day loomed, I was trying to stay calm and relaxed, although as a first-time breeder that was tricky. I had read the importance of this prenatal period as the emotional and physical health of the mother affects the health and personality of the puppies. Prenatal stress can significantly influence the brain development and behaviour of the puppies, and puppies from stressed mothers can struggle to recover from stress as adult dogs and can have decreased memory and learning. Phoebe had regular tummy strokes and I would talked to the puppies. I let her enjoy some good gentle walks to keep her fit and healthy for labour, fed her good raw food and only increased her rations for the last couple of weeks along with folic acid  with some extra Omega-rich foods.  I decided to give her the Canine Herpes vaccine too as an insurance policy against canine herpes which can result in Fading Puppy Syndrome. I even made a trip to the emergency out of hours vets the day before, so that I knew where to go if we had any complications.  

Waiting Game

So 3 days before her due date I started to take her temperature twice day and the day before the puppies arrived her temperature dropped and she started nesting in the whelping box. We had already spent a night in the whelping palace so that she was used to sleeping in the box and I realised how uncomfortable the camped was!  The day before her due date she ate her breakfast and dinner but was restless and throughout the evening she had numerous toilet visits to the garden closely followed by me and my torch. Finally, around 11.30pm she fell asleep in her bed in the kitchen and I caught up with some emails sitting on my camp bed in the dining room next door.  I was expecting her to start to have some puppies in the early hours of the morning. But at 12.02am on Wednesday 11thDecember I thought I heard the dishwasher bleep and came into the kitchen, only to see Phoebe looking surprised at this small damp black blob under her chin, and quickly realised that first puppy had arrived. I panicked, this wasn’t where the puppies were suppose be born! So carefully lifted the puppy (a little boy) into the whelping box and managed weigh him and she continued to clean and care for him. And over the next 4 hours Phoebe dutifully produced all her puppies, with three arriving in a 30 minute period.  She took care of everything and stepped into her motherly duties with total ease and confidence. One was born breech (my boy Stanley) and all were latching on to feed to get the all-important colostrum from their mum.

Puppies were born

She finally fell asleep at 4.15am and so did I, and I awoke at 8am to find her nursing her puppies. I had been told to expect some fatalities (and had even got some small cardboard boxes just in case),  so I rushed over to the whelping box and saw a dark mass at the back of the box.  I thought it was a puppy that hadn't survived the night so I was relieved to find it was just a soiled towel.  I was delighted to see that all 10 puppies were thriving and feeding well.

My first task was to get her some breakfast and to clean the box. I then wanted to weigh them and put their collars on. But Phoebe wasn’t too keen on me touching her puppies, she even picked two of the puppies off the scales!  I put coloured collars on them all, checked them and recorded their weighs on my whiteboard.  She was happy for me to be close to her and her brood and I spend the morning recorded everything on different spreadsheets - their weights, what Phoebe had eaten; when the box was cleaned; and even her toilet habits. The only thing I got wrong was sexing the puppies.  I had told some close friends and family that we had 7 boys and 3 girls only to realise a few days later we had 6 boys and 4 girls. Ms Pink was actually a boy and Mr Blue and Mr Purple were both girls! 

My main job was to make sure Phoebe was cared for with lots of highly nutritious food, frequent toilet breaks. Her food rations were increased fourfold and she got lots of other tasty snacks – cottage cheese, lots of raw eggs, sardines, raw liver; goats milk with oatmeal and honey; natural yogurt and blueberries. I became Phoebe’s personal VIP butler! And despite being a foodie, she would leave her bowl if her puppies cried or made a noise, they were her number one priority.

I studied my Puppy Culture Workbook carefully before the puppies arrived. Puppy Culture is an excellent breeding protocol covering the first 12 critical weeks of a puppy’s life, written by an experienced breeder in America, Jane Killion. Puppy Culture explores in detail the critical early periods of development that each puppy goes through. It provides fascinating insights and practical instructions for breeders to show what should be done at every critical juncture in order to raise well-socialised puppies. I watched this fascinating DVD when I picked up Phoebe as a puppy and had already re-watched the 6-hour series again in preparation for the litter.  I also joined the Puppy Culture Breeders Facebook page and was sharing news of my brood with breeders with litters all around the world.  I even made friends with a lovely lady in Florida who was having a litter at the same time as me.  She really liked the Tildaross breeding line.  So it was with great sadness that she found out that many of the 8 puppies she was expecting had been reabsorbed and after a C-section she had only one puppy who died 4 days later.  I was heartbroken for her, and was talking to her via messenger at 3am whilst I watched my beautiful 10 puppies sleeping.  It was a stark reminder how lucky I was.

The next 24 hours were important to make sure all the puppies were thriving. Sleep was snatched but I was just delighted that the birth had gone so well and that we had 10 beautiful, wriggling, greedy puppies.