Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2009 2:44 pm Post subject: Breeding a litter - So often no fairytale ending.
I don't want to be angel of doom, but I have some seriously bad experiences under my belt basically because I've stood my own and other peoples dogs at stud for quite a number of years. Because of that you get to see and hear about many more problems than if you just breed your own litters now and then. Believe me breeding is in NO WAY all puppy cuddles and fairytale endings. These are all Labradors:
Just last year Deeds had a litter of 9 born to a nice couple in Southend on Sea. Easy mating, easy pregnancy, false sense of security. At the (easy) birth they lost two. Just could not get them going however hard they worked. Then over the next FOURTEEN days (so long enough to get seriously attached) they lost all but one bitch puppy who survived and was perfectly fine. The cause is unknown, some pups would drift off losing their suck reflex and then despite tube feeding every two hours, slip away. Other pups just dropped dead where they 'stood' with no warning at all. These people did not sleep, did not eat and cried buckets for 14 days of hell. The bitch was never in danger as there was obviously a mystery virus but to work so hard for each puppy for it to slip away one by one was devestating. The post mortem on the last two showed a unusual virus which basically affected the heart. However mum was healthy, dad was healthy and it could not have been predicted. This is not the first time I have heard of this problem in random lines so you cannot know where it will strike. Their vets bill is around £2500 at the moment.
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On the other hand we had one bitch a few years ago, again a stud litter, who about ten days before whelping gave up eating. Nothing would start her again. Her temperature remained normal. It was like the hormonal surges made her completely anorexic. She had no strength by her due date to whelp and had a C section for the 7 pups. She could not raise them so the breeders had to by hand up day and night, no way of going to work for either. They lost the bitch on day 7. They lost 3 of the 7 pups. The lady had only lost her son in a motorbike accident a few months before and it nearly saw her off.
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We had a nice bitch come for mating last year. Lovely lady, really nice, had good matings, only 48 hours apart. Bitch was scanned in whelp. Then I got a call about 10 days before her due date to ask if from some signs they told me about I thought she was in labour? I said she couldn't be but go down the vets incase. They did and the vet tried to halt the first stage labour - couldn't, she went home and whelped each puppy normally, but as each drew breath they fought for air and died within minutes in a very distressing manner fighting for breath as they were too premature and their lungs were not developed. They lost them all. They bitch was in a terrible terrible state, heavy with milk and went through a lot of pain physcially because of that. Because the hope was always that one might make it, the vet had to allow her to whelp naturally hence starting the natural process of milk production....
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We had a lady two years back have a litter of four. She desperately wanted to keep a dog puppy and there was only one but he was big and strong. day 3 she laid on one of the bitches and it died. So after that the breeder slept with them day and night. She got them through ten days, was exhausted but I told her she was out of the woods but just be cautious. She remained sleeping with them - then went to the loo one day for 5 minutes and came back and the dog puppy was under the bitch, laid on, dead.
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My own bitch Jade, so in experienced hands or so we like to think, had a litter last September, got into very bad whelping complications, delivered two dead puppies, went to the vets and had a long and complicated emergency C Section just to deliver another dead puppy, and, thankfully two live. Of carrying 7 pups only 3 survived, one dying the next night screaming his way out of the world in terrible distress. This flipped an already sensitive and stressed Jade out and she rejected the puppies for a couple of days and went into a kind of hysteria that was only calmed with heavy doses of Valium from the vet. She will now be spayed. The total WHELPING bill was £1750. She took many weeks to truely recover from it, so much so we will delay spaying her a season or two to recover properly internally and hormonally.
I can go on.... seriously.... never think its all about health and happiness because seriously, it rarely is. Just from the fact your bitch may not be a willing bitch to mate you could be distressed from the point where you have to hold her down and she screams and yells not to be mated, through to the point where she may reject the whole litter, have no milk, have no maternal drive, produce deformed pups, pups with physcial deformities that you have to put to sleep.... etc etc....
Di
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The boys!
Read: Wylanbriar Dog Blog on the website: Updated! 1st February 12´!
Di, With two weeks to the day to go with Megan due to whelp, I am about to slash my wrists due to panick! Seriously, my worst nightmare at the moment is the pups being born too early and not being able to breathe.
It is very true, things do go wrong and more often than people realise. Breeding a litter is not easy or cheap, in fact I sometimes wonder why we do it
Trace x
Last edited by tralab on Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:19 pm; edited 1 time in total
I was not picking you up on your grammar, I was just asking the question. Do problems occur more than people realise or would you say problems occur more often than not?
Di - Your posts are so wonderfully insightful and show both the negatives and positives of every aspect of dog breeding.
Your posts are sometimes hard to read from an emotional sense but if just one person changes their mind about breeding/ standing at stud or is deterred from making a bad decision then it must be worth it.
Di, the above just confirms my sentiments - Am I doing the right thing or not, when I have such a lovely dog. But I know I have to give it ago, even just the once. I have personal experience of heartache of breeding. With my mums dogs, Rosie had to have a C Section and very nearly lost her. She had a huge dead deformed pup inside, it had been dead for a week or 2 and very nearly finished her off. Also, when little Patsy had a litter of 4, we lost one, then the pups were left alone for 5 mins while Patsy was let outside. Rosie in the meantime went to the whelping box, took a pup, and killed it, 4 tiny holes in a perfectly formed pup. The 2 dogs were and still are best chums, think it was jealousy that they weren't hers. The upset of that finished mum off, no more after that.
Millys dad, Apologies! See what state I am in now With my 3 litters, two had emergency vet trips so I am going on my own experiences and I do hear horrible stories about whelping problems at shows from some top kennels who have been breeding for 10-20 years. My friend who was whelping assistant on Hazel's last litter said she couldn't do it, as we raced to the vet in the p*****g down rain at 3.30 in the morning on a very wet and windy November night!
Or - you have an easy pregnancy, easy whelping, fantastic mum, good healthy pups and then you struggle to find good homes for the last few, with people letting you down right left and centre until you are wondering 'is it me?' and crying because you soooo love your babies and sooo know that all they need most in the world is a really good home with as much time and attention as they deserve. It can be soul-destroying this breeding thing
Exactly Jackie! Apart from the whelping and raising the litter, the next hardest thing is rehoming the pups. Some people let you down without a thought. Then even as the new owners drive off, my OH finds me sobbing in the kitchen and wondering if they really were they the right people to have one of MY pups after all! Don't tell OH but I have seen him shed a tear too - of course he would say he had something in his eye!
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Seriously, my worst nightmare at the moment is the pups being born too early and not being able to breathe.
See what state I am in now 
