As a breeder it is never easy to actually get your girl pregnant and knock on wood, I have been successful most of the time. Mother nature is never convenient and things don't always go the way you plan. Take this breeding for example. I knew Nevada was going to come into season and I knew it would most likely happen when I was at a dog show in January. January was pretty packed for me. I wanted to enter her in the Portland shows as she finally had coat and looks mature and I thought she would do well. Of course right after entries close, the coat starts coming out in buckets and I knew she would come into season. Trying to be at a show with a seasoned stud dog and a bitch that is in season is miserable for everyone in the hotel, and most definately me. So I decided to eat my entries and leave Nevada at home with the house sitter. Strict instructions to watch for signs of her coming into season.
My house sitter calls on Saturday and lets me know she is in season. So I contact the Stud Dog owner of the dog I plan to use just to give her a heads up and make sure they don't have plans that will cause us problems. I next call the repro vet's office to make an appointment so we can come up with a game plan of when to have her ship semen for us to use, He lives across the country and I didn't want to drive there in the winter. My repro vet is on vacation until the following Monday so she says to get progesterone on Thur, Sat and then they will pull on Monday when I come in. Thur I take her to my vet, and we get the results the next day. My vet sends me an email and says she's at 2. For those that don't know 2 is when they start to surge and when they hit 5 is when we want to breed them. I figured on Thursday she would be at .2, certainly not at 2. I kidded with my vet and told her you mean .2 right. She says no she is at 2. Crap! My house sitter didn't catch her on day one as there is no way she could have progressed this fast. I contact the stud dog owner and let her know and we both start worrying about the weekend and if this is going to work. Saturday I take Nevada back in and wait for the results because I have a bad feeling. Sure enough she has ovulated and is at 5. It is now Sat Evening Back East. The soonest we can get the shipment is Tuesday if she collects on Monday and that will be iffy because there is a terrible snow storm.
As much as I like the dog I wanted to use, I realized that timing is just not going to work and I need a plan B and Fast. I called Anne and asked her how she felt about repeating the Nevada and Bull litter and was she open to taking Nevada for a week, while I flew down to Arizona to judge Sweepstakes at a Dog show that week. She agrees that it is the best idea and I drove from Tacoma to Portland to leave Nevada with Anne and still needed to get home that night to feed my dogs that were at home. Needless to say, it was a lot of miles that day in the van. Nevada spent a week on the farm and of course she Loves Bully and Anne and Greg. I went and picked her up the following weekend and have been babying her ever since.
We went in to see Dr Cindy last Monday where she confirmed that Nevada is pregnant. she tried to count puppies by ultrasound and her unofficial count was 7 with one additional puppy being reabsorbed. I was concerned but she assured me this is quite normal and we would put her on antibiotics just for the safe side and she wanted to see her again today to do a recheck. Nevada has been very nautious, hasn't wanted to eat and I have been begging her to eat. At this point she is eating better than I am. Today we had our recheck and Dr Cindy said everything looks really good. All the puppies look healthy and Nevada had actually gained 4 pounds which surprised me as since I was sure she had lost weight. She gave me suggestions on the food and tonight Nevada ate the best she has eaten for the past week. She had two cups of kibble with Roasted Chicken and the drippings. She inhaled her food and wanted more, but I didn't want her to get sick, so she gets the other 1/2 of the chicken for breakfast tomorrow.
It makes me very happy to be able to tell folks now that this pregnancy is looking good. We will be doing x rays on the 26th of March and we have scheduled a c section for the 30th of March.
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