Well Kadee had her puppies last week. They were born a few days early, in the wee hours of Tuesday morning June 5th. Actually they started around 9 pm on June 4th but the majority were born after midnight.
She had a very easy whelping this time - afterwards I thought, "Now THIS is how everyone said it was going to be!" First time I haven't had to really add much assistance. The second puppy needed some help coming out, but all the others Kadee did on her own with very minimal fuss. Her labor and whelping this time around took half the amount of hours as her first litter.
The only concern was that the first puppy born was the tiniest thing I've ever seen - only .3 lbs. I've never seen anything so tiny. Kim & Kelly, who came over to lend a hand (or rather in this case mostly to watch since Kadee didn't need much of a hand this time) said the pup was the size of a kitten at birth. We had to help it nurse off of Kadee every hour because the puppy couldn't seem to get the hang of finding a nipple on her own. After the whole litter was there it became even more difficult to get a nipple for her because she was being constantly pushed out of the way by her much bigger siblings. The minute the vet's office opened on Tuesday morning I was in there getting some milk replacer and Kim brought over a tiny feeder/bottle for me to use so I could supplement her milk intake. By late morning, however, she was nursing off Kadee on her own and getting the hang of it.
Still, I continued to supplement her with the bottle feeding, and got up every few hours that night to make sure she either nursed off Kadee on her own or to bottle feed her. All seemed to be going well - Wednesday morning rolled around and the puppy had made it through the first 36 hours. I named the puppy "Hope"... it seemed a fitting name for her.
But then she suddenly stopped eating late that morning, and wasn't moving her limbs around as much. She no longer wanted to nurse off the bottle or from Kadee, so I was left with squeezing some milk in her mouth and letting her swallow it. I spent most of the afternoon trying to get milk in her, keeping her warm since her body temperature started to go down. I put a heating pad in the whelping pool and put her on it, then kept warming towels in the microwave every 5 minutes or so and snuggling them around her. I called the vet's office and spoke with them about what was going on, discussed tube-feeding her, but they said if I was able to squirt milk in her mouth and she was swallowing it that was probably just fine too. Apparantly tube feeding can be risky if you don't know what you're doing - which I don't!
By 4 pm or so she was fading quickly. I tried everything I could to save her - I even managed to revive her a few times, but eventually I realized I was just prolonging the inevitable and decided I needed to let her go. Still, she hung on for another few hours. She would appear to die, then next thing you know she'd take a gasping breath and revive herself.
During the last few hours of the puppy's life, Kadee seemed to know exactly what was happening. You know how in 8 Below when the dog fell down the cliff and the other dogs cuddled up to it as it was dying and lay with their heads on the dying dog? I always thought Disney was just humanizing the dogs there. But I swear to god, Kadee did the exact same thing to her puppy.... she cuddled up with her head beside the puppy and didn't leave the puppy's side the whole time, which surprised me because I knew Kadee had to be way too hot lying on the heating pad like that. And when the puppy was taking her last breaths Kadee rested her head across the puppy so the puppy was completely covered by Kadee's head, with just the puppy's head peeking out past Kadee's nose. I've never seen her or any other mom do anything like that with a puppy. After I realized the pup was gone I let Kadee stay with her for awhile - I figured she'd fight me if I tried to take the puppy away too soon. When I did finally take the pup Kadee gave me a sad look but didn't try to take the puppy back (as opposed to whenever I was bottle feeding Hope and would remove her from the whelping pool Kadee would try to grab the puppy and bring her back in).
I buried the puppy in a grave outside under my apple tree, and as I started shoveling the dirt over the cardboard box, all of a sudden my whole kennel erupted in a group howl as I filled that grave and patted down the dirt. Probably they were just howling for the hell of it, but I'd like to think they somehow knew and were howling goodbye.
This was actually the first siberian I've lost (I'm not counting stillborn pups), and even though I had tried to brace myself for the possibility of this from the start because she was so tiny, and even though she was only alive for less than 2 days, it still was pretty hard.
Meanwhile, the other 6 pups are thriving and healthy and growing bigger by the day! I look foward to when they open their eyes, hopefully this coming weekend. This time I've done something a little different: first off I decided to set up a whelping pool in my kitchen and that's where Kadee whelped them, as opposed to having them in the whelping pen in the garage. And boy, I'm doing this EVERY time from now on!! It was so much nicer to be in the house, able to sit on the couch and watch DVDs while keeping an eye on the whelping pool in the next room and able to just go over and check on things or watch her give birth to another pup. Then I kept the pups in the kitchen for a few days to keep an eye on them, and because it was easier watching and feeding Hope from there. But when it came time to move them down to the whelping pen in the garage I found I didn't want them gone. I work out of my extra large dining area/kitchen and I loved having the pups and Kadee right beside me all day long.
So now I bring the pups and Kadee down to the whelping pen in the evenings and overnight so that my house dogs can spend some time inside. But first thing in the morning I bring them back up to the kitchen/office where they stay beside me all day long. I'm getting to watch them grow up hour by hour and I'm fully enjoying it! Obviously I can't do this for too long - once they start walking and move out of the whelping pool they've got to stay in the pen downstairs, but for now I'm loving having them beside me all day long.
Visit my website regularly this month for pics! I'll update their current pics early next week after all their eyes are open.
Until next time....
