Shyla and Her Puppies: July 2009

About Three weeks ago, we received a SOS call from Christ Yoder Shelter telling us they had a pregnant dog that would be euthanized if they could not find a rescue to take her. We we asked "how pregnant" we were told, they didn't know. Well a few days later when I met one of their staff to pick her up, it was pretty obvious she was more than a "little pregnant."
We immediately took her to the vet to be x-rayed and discovered seven little skeletons. We knew we didn't have much time so we began gathering all the needed supplies to prepare for the arrival of her family.

We began taking her temperature twice a day to get a read on what her normal temperature was, which ran between 99-100 so we knew we just had to be patient and wait for it to drop to 98 degrees.

On Saturday, July 18, we had a large gathering at our home for all of the ADR volunteers and had told them, maybe we'll have puppies by then, but no luck. On Sunday morning I took her temperature and it was 98.7. BINGO! We'd be having our puppies within the next 12-24 hours.

All day on Sunday she was acting more "needy" than usual, never leaving my side and for the first time, got in to the baby pool I had set up for her to whelp in and would lay down. Finally about 10:30 PM, she began the pacing and licking herself and I knew the time had arrived! 10 days after being rescued. Yep! That was a close one! Thankfully this was not the first litter to be born in my home so I was no where near as nervous as I was the first time a few years ago.

She delivered the first puppy at 10:49 and the last at 3:35 AM. She had no complications and only twice I walked over to break the sack of the just delivered puppy because she seemed a bit more occupied cleaning the last puppy delivered but as soon as I did, she immediately took over.

Shyla is no more than 1 - 1.5 years old. She still more puppy than dog, and I think she's traveled down this road before. We had a little surprise after puppy number 7. I could still feel one more puppy and sure enough, number 8 arrived. She had 3 females and 5 males. All beautiful and healthy as can be!

Her hormones seem to be raging now and she is VERY protective and so far will not allow anyone else in the room with her and the pups but me. I guess since I was with her and didn't try to interfere while she was having them (she was doing just fine on her own!), she quickly learn to trust me and allows me to pick them up for petting and to move them when their bedding needs to be cleaned. She's a good mother but sometimes she gets more distracted by her protective nature and it drives me crazy that she's more concerned about a dog barking in another room or next door while her puppies are crying! But I think I've figured it out... she knows what she's doing.

ONE WEEK OLD