The Birth

My heart is beating wildly with fear, but I have to seem calm. I don't want Layla to sense any negative energy while she's trying to give birth. Layla is licking her vulva a LOT. I'm freaked out because part of the water sac (or membrane that is surrounding the puppy) is hanging from the vuvla, but there is no puppy head in sight. This hasn't happened before, and I'm constantly reminding myself to be calm, just because it's different doesn't mean its dangerous.

Before you can blink, a membrane-encased puppy starts to emerge, but doesn't completely come out. The puppy retracts back into Layla, and comes out with the next big contraction. It's go time.

First, Matt helps Layla tear the sac away from the puppy's face and body. With a bulb syringe, he sucks any fluid from the puppy's nostrils and mouth, and we immediately place a Nutri-drop onto the puppy's tongue (Nutri-drops are this smelly brown fluid that is packed with nutrients, obviously. It is designed to keep hypoglycemic puppies alive, the puppies that may not make it because they are born too small or don't nurse well).

Now that Layla has given birth to the first puppy, I can offer her whelping pudding, which is a mixture of goat’s milk, a raw egg, water, and karo syrup. Calcium is restricted throughout the whole pregnancy until after the first pup is born. This is to prevent eclampsia, which is a deficiency of blood calcium that develops in the days after the birth. I know it sounds weird to restrict something in order to prevent a deficiency, but if I were to give her a lot of milk during her pregnancy, her body would not be able to produce it when she needed it to produce milk for the pups.

To give her the "pudding", which is more of a liquid milk texture with bits of egg yolk floating here and there, I dip a small measuring cup into the mixture, and then I hold it where Layla can lap the mixture from it. This way she doesn't have to move anywhere or disturb the pups while she drinks it. She's pretty happy at this point, because she rarely gets to drink anything so delicious, not to mention her body is flooding with oxytocin, which is supposed to be a pleasurable birth hormone.

The bedding is pretty wet at this point and will have to be changed soon, but there is rarely any time because once the pup is born, we have to separate him from the placenta while making sure Layla doesn't eat any of it, because it makes her vomit. While I am tempting Layla away from her vigorous licking with whelping pudding, Matt is attaching a lightweight nylon clamp to the placental cord about a half-inch away from his belly, then attaching a heavier, stainless steel clamp about a half-inch further down the cord toward the placenta (which is still inside of Layla).

Matt quickly ties dental floss tightly around the umbilical cord before he snips between the two clamps. I hand him the medical scissors and other supplies like the nurses depicted on television, but am also responsible for keeping Layla’s head out of Matt’s light so he can care for the pup and safely remove the entire placenta, ensuring that none is retained inside of Layla’s body. A retained piece of placenta can cause an infection which will likely result in the death of the mother, almost ensuring the death of the young and fragile puppies.

The puppy is encouraged to latch on and nurse as soon as the cord is cut, and the process of breastfeeding increases the flow of oxytocin, encouraging contractions and motherly instincts of hygiene and nesting. Before we can blink, the second puppy is making his entrance into the world, and we are prepared for him and next two as well.

While Matt works, I heat up fresh water in an electric kettle and throw soiled washcloths and hand towels into the hamper. Suddenly, Matt is yelling for me. Layla is in distress, overcome with severe shivers. My heart beats wildly with anxiety, an influx of information about eclampsia (the main symptom of which is violent shivering) attacking my brain while I fumble to find the phone number for the emergency vet. Right as I’m about to hit “send” on the phone, Layla vomits and stops shivering! Hooray! I remove Layla from the whelping box and quickly lift the soiled sheets with the pups inside of it while Matt lays down clean linens. Layla hops into the bed and we place her pups with her, positioning them over the heating pad so they don’t get chilled. While Matt and I get control of our panic, I continue to hand him Nutri-drops, clamps, scissors, baby wipes, paper towels, a warm washcloth, or whatever else is needed.

Layla took about an hour and a half to birth all four puppies. I was thinking there would only be three, but Matt said “No, I definitely feel another one in there.” We were elated to have two girls and two boys, and relieved that everything had gone well with little hint of complications.

The last time Layla had a litter, two heads presented in the birth canal at the same time. I tried to explain to Matt to gently push one head back into the birth canal with a warm-washcloth-covered hand, but before we could react, a contraction sent one of the puppies flying past his brother and into the world. Birth is a terrifying process because so much is at stake, and we are lucky to have encountered so few complications. The stress of the whelping process is one of the reasons I would like to stop breeding for a few years; although it is a very rewarding experience, my life will be changing as I finish work toward my undergraduate degrees and decide whether to pursue graduate school or a career. It would not be fair to continue to breed if I can’t completely commit to the health and socialization of the puppies, and the emotional welfare of the parents.