Kasidi's Puppies

Sunday.

Kasidi delivered her 10 pups (details to follow) Last puppy born at 06.30. Last night we were watching TV, (Mark and I were dozing as we were both exhausted) when we heard a cry from the puppies, Alex went to over to investigate and declared Kasidi was passing a placenta, he then shouted the placenta was getting bigger and out popped a puppy, 14 hours after the last puppy. A beautiful bitch with a perfect ridge. This meant Kasidi had 11 pups and Ruby 9 so I decided to offer Ruby Kasidi's first born pup Adobe. I knew this was risky but It did in fact work very well. Kasidi was fast asleep when I put Adobe in with Ruby and she immediately licked It, the puppy then made his way to her teat and had his first taste of milk as he was only getting colostrum from Kasidi. He has now adapted very well to his new family. He is very easily identifiable as Kasidi's puppy as he is the only one with white front feet.

This afternoon as I was sat in Kasidi's box I noticed I had two puppies with the same named collar. This confused me somewhat but I guessed tiredness had caused the error, as I went through the puppies all were accounted for but I still had 2 called Apple. I counted the puppies and the total came to 11 but we had passed a puppy to Ruby the night before so I was now very confused. I consulted my paperwork from Kasidi's deliveries and can only surmise that after Apple had been born another bitch arrived that I was totally unaware of. When later I saw a puppy without a collar I thought I had forgotten to put Apples collar on.
So Kasidi had 12 puppies, seven dogs and five bitches. The last puppy is called Air and she weighs just 13 ounces, the smallest puppy we have ever had. At the moment I am vigilant as to her welfare, I have already supplemented her with a high calorie food for fading puppies and just hope that she does well. I have never lost A puppy and certainly do not want to do so now.

Both Ruby and Kasidi have their whelping boxes side by side and from time to time they peer into each others boxes to see whats happening. They have never had a fallout and I am confident they will be fine over the coming months.

I will give details of Kasidi's pups tomorrow. I had very little sleep again, last night choosing to doze on the sofa. In the early days what seems to happen is a puppy becomes stranded at one end of the box and cries when he knows siblings are feeding. So I am constantly picking up puppies and placing them with their mother. This is only during the very early days and I also needed to maintain temperature in the living room via the stove.


UPDATE. 19.30

Kasidi's milk came in today and this evening I have noticed a problem. The back 2 teats particularly the lower one is hardening and feeling warm and the puppies will not feed from them. In view of the fact that 11 puppies now have only 9 teats I have handed over Flex to Ruby. He is feeding quite happily and Ruby appears happy to have him.

I have started Kasidi on Clavamox 500mg which fortunately I always have on standby and she will go to the vets in the morning. Her temp is slightly elevated but I suspect It is going to go up more before It comes down. This is all very unfortunate and I feel fraught with worry, the puppies are so vulnerable at this early stage of their life.

It is going to be another long night.