3 days old

Nevada and I are in a routine now, she is starting to eat and feeling better after her surgery.  Hard part about doing a c section is they don't feel well and don't want to eat afterwards.  Good nutrition is important to help the babies thrive and produce milk.  Nevada went through a day and a 1/2 of not wanting food.  She is now starting to want food, but I would like her to eat more than she is.  She does seem to like whatever I am eating so I have been fixing a plate for myself and pretty much feeding it all to her - I think I will call it I have a Nursing Bitch Diet - do you think it will catch on?

Puppies are all doing well and pretty much nurse and sleep, nurse and sleep.  I weigh them twice a day and they are all gaining, not a whole lot, but they are gaining so that is a good sign.  I am hoping today that Nevada's milk will really start to come in and we will see some big gains this evening.

I am trying to figure out how to get pictures from my phone onto the blog so if it works you can see some puppy pictures.  New phone and it takes awesome pictures, I just need to figure out how to use it.  The two girls are Yellow and Pink.  The boys are Teal, Green, Orange, Purple and Red.

Puppies have arrived!

This is going to be a short and sweet post, because I am exhausted but I know everyone wants to know what happened today.

Last night Nevada started signs of labor, all night she was panting and pacing and I thought for sure that we would start having puppies in the middle of the night.  That did not happen.  This morning I spoke with my vet and we decided to give her a bit more time to try and deliver them naturally and by 1pm I could tell she was in distress which meant the babies were as well.  Off we went and my vet did a c section this afternoon.  Nevada and her 7 babies - 5 boys and 2 girls are doing great.  All are suckling and she is being a great mom.

I will post more later, but I hear my pillow calling me, at least for a short nap.

And the X Ray Shows........

7 Puppies!  My vet counted 7 puppies when we went in for x rays on Monday afternoon.  I thought I may have seen one more spine but she wasn't sure about what I was seeing.

The good news is that Nevada should be able to whelp these babies without us having to do a c section, fingers and toes and everything else is crossed that this will indeed be the case.  Of the four litters I have had before, I had two litters of 10 and two litters of 1 each of those scenarios requires a c section - either too many or not enough for the girls to be able to do it on their own.

Nevada is starting to look uncomfortable and I do think she is ready to be done with this stage of pregnancy, she is still coming to work with me and the girls and clients are spoiling her rotten.  Tomorrow will be out last day at the office as I will stay home with her on Thursday to watch and I certainly don't want her water breaking at work, that would not be a good thing, so I will work from home on Thursday and everything points to puppies arriving sometime on Friday.

I will keep you posted as I can give more information

1 Week to Go

Nevada has been coming to work with me everyday and enjoying all of the extra attention.  She has her favorite clients and I find it funny when they bypass me and go directly to her, get down on the floor and scratch her belly, which is getting bigger by the day.  She is not selective and basically anyone that will pet her gets her attention these days

This weekend is being spent cooking and freezing food so that it will be easy for me to manage and not have to take time away from watching puppies and of course getting the whelping room ready.  We are washing all the bedding, towels and making a list of everything that is needed or may possibly be needed to make an order from Amazon by the end of the weekend.

Today Nevada's wastline is 37 1/2 inches so she has gained one inch in two days and I will try and post a picture of her.  I got a new phone today and still learning how it works.

Monday afternoon we will get x rays done and get a count of how many babies there are and it will be later in the evening before I am going to be able to post about it due to classes and a meeting that same evening so please be patient with me.

2 More Weeks Until Puppies!

After Nevada's last singleton litter, it was recommended that I breed her on her next heat cycle.  She Came into season right before Christmas and I knew she would need to be bred over the Christmas Holiday.  Originally I had hoped to use a nice boy from California from this breeding but because of Christmas that just wasn't going to happen and I needed to look closer to home and someone that would be willing to let me impose upon their holiday to do a breeding.  I called Anne Summers and we talked about doing a line breeding on Ivie by using Bull.  Bull is a Dallas son and Ivie grandson, Nevada is an Ivie daughter.  We both are very excited about this breeding.  Bull has the qualities that Nevada is lacking and I feel that this is going to give me some beautiful puppies.

Nevada spent the week before Christmas with Anne and Greg.  Anne took her in for progesterone testing and was able to get natural breedings Thur, Fri, Sat and Sunday.  Christmas day I drove down and picked Nevada up and she has been very snuggly since the breeding, (more than normal).  Nevada has been coming to work with me and sleeps under my desk at work.  She is getting bigger and bigger and today she measured 34 1/2 around her abdomen, normally she is around 27 or 28 inches and she has a couple more weeks of puppies baking in the oven.