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Bliss is a lovely brindle boxer. She was a show dog. Well she was, up until she had her first litter. Let me tell you her story:
Three days before her due date, Bliss started producing a lot of green fluid. There was also some black fluid too. I spoke to a number of breeders and the vet. All but one said that the pups were close and to expect them at any hour. All except one breeder who said that she should have an emergency c-section, and that green fluid was not necessarily a good thing. This is was Monday night at 7.00pm.
Sleepless night Monday, and still no pups on Tuesday. The vet said not to worry as they would be here by Wednesday. Another sleepless night.
On Wednesday, no pups. Back to the vet. He said that she wasn't dilated and she wasn't contracting, and there really wasn't a need for a c-section as the pups were imminent. In any case, the pups were still moving. Another bad night.
On Thursday, I was back to the vet demanding a c-section. The vet disagreed, but I persisted. I told him the pups had stopped moving. He told me to go away and they would do a c-section at midday.
I got a call at 12.30pm by the vet nurse telling me to hurry on down to give the vet a hand as all puppies born so far were not breathing, and they did not have enough nurses there to help.
So I rushed down to the vet to find my beloved Bliss splayed out on the operating table with her guts hanging out, and dead pups all round. The first pup had died a couple of days previously. She had then got stuck in the birth canal, and blocked any of the other pups from exiting.
We managed to bring 7 of the 8 pups back to life. Unfortunately, 2 more did not make it. Very distressed, I took home 5 pups, and a very sick mum.
The pups did not do well. Two of them were so small they call hardly reach the nipples to feed. One of the stronger pups died within two days. Meanwhile, I rushed Bliss back to the vet with what looked like her intestine poking out through her c-section sutures.
The vet didn't think it was too bad until he opened her up, and all her internal stitches had become undone, and her tissue was already starting to adhere to bits of other tissue in the wrong place. This general anesthetic really affected Bliss badly. She was unable to care for her pups for many hours.
I lost another pup a couple of days later.
We were down to three pups, when Bliss developed mastisis in every breast. She could no longer feed the pups, the infection was almost overwhelming. I lost another pup after a very long struggle one night. He died in my arms one morning at 3.00am. It was a very sad moment. He was a lovely looking boy who had fought a long fight. But he could fight no more. Even an emergency trip to the vet to inject fluids didn't help. He is now buried out in my front yard under a tree. I still think of him regularly, and how his little skeleton is lying out there now.
Although Bliss was no longer allowed to nurse the pups because of her mastisis, she knew she'd lost another one. She found me lying on the couch sobbing and laid her muzzle against my cheek.
There were two pups left who were then hand raised. They were just lovely - boisterous and outgoing. I sent the small bitch back to the breeder at 7 and a half weeks. Within four hours of getting off the plane, she had a seizure. Hundreds of dollars were spent trying to save her. She was put to sleep a few days later when she failed to recover.
Meanwhile, I had one little boy left. Late one Friday night I checked on him in his bed. He was 8 weeks old. He was lying stiff, covered in his own saliva, and in his own excrement. He was alive, but while his eyes were open, he was not conscious. He too had had a seizure. I rang the vet and took him up there. The vet agreed that there was not much we could do for him, and the best thing to do would be to put him to sleep. That was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make.
What happened from there? Bliss really never recovered 100% physically. She was not fit to go back into the show ring, and I was not prepared to risk breeding her again.
I also copped a lot of flack too from local boxer breeders who wanted me to put down my white pups at birth. I refused, and will always refuse to put down a pup, just because God painted it the "wrong" colour.
This litter cost me over $2000, and at the end, I had no pups to sell. Bliss was unable to be shown again, and from there, I refused to ever breed another boxer.
Yep, this is the "joy of birth".
