01.31.10
The long and the short of it
I just added more photos but I can’t put them in order from some reason. I’m not a computer geek that’s for sure. I have a bit more time today because the beautiful full moon last night brought with it some great happenings. The puppies finally figured out how to use the bottle instead of me having to use a mouth syringe and take an hour to feed them, now it only takes about 10-15 minutes and everyone is happy. They also get more at a time and so the 2 hour feedings are changing to 3-4 hour feedings. Rúnar let me sleep today so I finally got 5 hours sleep, long story short I have only slept 2 times about 30 minutes each time over the past 5 days. The first night I overslept by an hour and the pups lost so much weight and so I was really turning into a nervous wreck, I tried to lay down and sleep but couldn’t, was scared I’d oversleep again and I could have killed them with my carelessness. I was having heart palpitations and all kinds of strange things going on, seeing flecks, my nerves couldn’t take anything and I’d snap. I didn’t eat much myself and forgot to drink most the time, isn’t that ironic that I do everything to keep the puppies hydrated and fed and forget myself. Oh well, it’s all looking up and Rúnar has even decided to go and hold the course tomorrow instead of postponing it a week like he had thought of on Friday when things were still a bit iffy. We can see that she is getting some milk but wonder if she overstressed if she’ll lose it again. I’m hoping it doesn’t stress her too much having him leave in the middle of the day on a weekend. At least I got some rest today!
We had been waiting for Skella to have her puppies on Monday because we thought she would start on Sunday night. Nothing happened until the European Championship game started live on TV. Of course we wanted to watch that Iceland was competing and the whole country watches handball when these specials competitions are. Typical of course that meant we couldn’t watch it so Rúnar turned on his computer in the room with the whelping box and we listened to it. Now whether that was too stressful for Skella we will never know but something didn’t go as planned. I know I haven ‘t given all the details but the birth started out fine and then Skella started to get overly stressed to the point of we knew something was wrong. We called the vet and she told us to come right away and so we packed up the one pup and Skella and away we went for the 10-15 minute drive to the vets. Got there ex-rays were taken and there appeared to be no reason why she couldn’t birth on her own although they all had their feet first so they gave her some oxitosin and soon after 3 puppies were born in a space of about 5 minutes each. The last little guy was TINY (185 gr.) and popped out without us realizing it because the male puppy ahead of him was HUGE (335 gr.). So he lay there in his sack for a few seconds and was turning white drowning when we noticed him. The vet didn’t seem to have delivered many puppies (she is a student vet) or at least it felt that way so I asked is he breathing don’t we have to massage him a bit. She looked at him laying on the floor beside her and said oh, yes then picked him up and did the swing through the legs trick but nothing happened. I asked to have him from her and started massaging as I’ve had to do so many times in the past with my own litters and other people’s.
He started breathing but sounded like he had water in his lungs so she gave him a needle for his lungs and then a little puppy boost paste. He was whining and gasping for breath for so long that we thought maybe we shouldn’t have revived him, it reminded me of Birta when she was born and it took so long to bring her back to life. The gasping and the sound they make is heartwrenching. He was alive though and we put them all up to Skella’s belly but couldn’t get them to drink much because Skella was just too anxious. While the puppies were arriving Skella’s teats and belly as well as her ears were white and the teats looked shriveled and hard instead of pinkish, they remained that way while we were trying to get the puppies to suckle. It scared me actually, looked like dead flesh and reminded me of shock (like in Freyja after she was hit by a car) but when I asked the vet if that was normal (I’d never seen that before!) she said sure it’s fine, the new student tried to ask her again in English because we thought she might not notice or understand what we meant. I think sometimes that the language difference is not a good thing, she does not speak much Icelandic and even when speaking to her in English I sometimes feel she doesn’t understand my accent. She is from Holland I believe. The vet assured us there were no more puppies left in Skella, we were not sure she was right but went home with the new bundles of joy.
About half an hour after we got home we were still trying to get the puppies to drink because Skella did not want to lay still, then all of a sudden Skella jumped up turned around and started licking her backend. As we thought the last puppy had arrived it was 18:25, she had started giving birth at 14:25. This last one was the only one that came head first. So after that she settled down and we thought the puppies were getting some milk because she had a bunch of milk before she started to give birth. I think possibly the stress of everything going on was too much for her and it soon became apparent that the puppies were not getting milk. The numbers were not good, all were losing and losing fast.
Luckily Rúnar stayed home on Tuesday as well and we took her to the vets and said we wanted to give the puppies fluids because they were not getting anything. She gave Skella an injection of oxitosin and some calcium and said now let the puppies nurse on the floor here. Of course they all looked like they were nursing and so she felt they were fine. I was nervous but thought okay the milk will come in now and we were giving them puppy formula every two hours. I weighed them regularly and they kept losing and were almost up to minus 40 grams on the biggest ones. I called the vet in the evening and said that I wanted to give them fluids and that was that! The on call vet who is a man came home to give them each a shot. He no doubt saved their lives by doing that! They stayed stable through the night with the 2 hour feedings but didn’t gain or lost one or two grams. Next day I phoned and said I needed to bring them in again for another shot of fluids under the skin because they were not gaining yet and now they were dehydrated again as well.
When we got there the vet checked them and sure enough they definitely were not in good shape, they got a shot and some puppy boost and I asked if I could have some of that to take home. Long story short…the fluids under the skin helped and although it’s taken a few days for them to reach birth weight again because we took too long to get them started, they are now all gaining well.
I had a real breakthrough last night and I thank the beautiful full moon. Hehe They all finally learned how to drink from the bottle without choking themselves and now I can feed them all including the little guy with a bottle and it meant that Rúnar can now feed them for me so I got much needed sleep this morning when Rúnar woke up I went to bed for 5 hours and woke up refreshed and ready to go. I went outside and cleaned the yard and even got to go onto Facebook and add some photos for my friends there. I just didn’t know what to do with all the extra time I had on my hands, I could do dishes, eat, drink, do the laundry. WOW, never thought I’d miss not being able to do housework. Hehehe It was a very difficult experience and not the first time I’ve been through it but other times I have not been so lucky. So I’m glad that they are growing like weeds now and gaining. I think they are all out of danger and I’m so thankful that we actually did think quick enough (although I wish the vet had helped us more when we first asked for help) to be able to save them all even the little tiny one. He is such a great little puppy, he’s always hungry and eats so well that he’s never been any problem to feed. The only one that is more lazy about eating is the first born little girl. She is so pretty but of course she went so much longer than all the rest without fluids to maybe it will just take her a little bit longer to come to her own again.
Now I’m going to add some photos of them with their new names.
