Safe Passage

We've come out the other side with everyone alive(so far). Halo's temperature dropped Monday morning and that gave us a 24 hours window in which she would eventually produce her last litter.

This is what the whelping box looked like when I set it up - the cat is demonstrating where the puppies go.

And here's what she did to it Monday afternoon. So cute.

Adine arrived to witness the birth since she is planning on breeding Halo's daughter Karma. Leeloo made herself comfortable.

Halo spent the night being restless and at 5am I was up and preparing for the inevitable. She spent some time rearranging the paper again and making the nest just right.

An hour later she produced White Ribbon Boy. He has a little white spot on his throat and on his bottom, something I haven't seen before. Isn't it cute?

Five more puppies came in the next 4 hours and we thought we'd be done in time for lunch. They were all healthy and thriving, no assistance required and all ridged except one girl came with twice her allotment of crowns.

Halo settled down, nursed the babies, had contractions every 10 minutes or so and we figured she was moving the puppies along in there so we waited. And waited.

Raimi and Leeloo waited too on the other side of the gate ... poor kids. They were so good and only ate a dish of jujubes ... Raimi's sweet tooth always gets the better of him.

After 2 hours with no results I called Halo's breeder Erin for advice. Wait a bit. I called my mom too for a second opinion(no offense Erin!) and she said she'd wait too.

So we waited. And waited. At 2pm I called the vet. What do we do? Bring her in just in case. So we packed up the puppies in their warming box, Adine rode in the back with Halo who was still contracting and we arrived at the vet. We forgot the camera much to our annoyance.

Halo became very anxious about me and her puppies but was an incredible trooper. We x-rayed her and found to our surprise one single GIANT puppy who was no where near the exit. He was still safely entombed mid-abdomen.

So we decided on Oxytocin to get things moving a little faster. He moved a little but not enough. Another shot. Another wait. No progress. We decided to send in a rescue mission.

At this time the vet asked if there were complications or anything was a spay okay? I said spay her anyway, this is her last litter, and I was going to do it regardless.

Halo was in surgery for two hours while they extracted a very large puppy. He wasn't breathing but there was a heart beat so they started to work on him and he came around very quickly, his tongue pinked up and he was yelling. Hooray! A ridged boy who is now Blue Ribbon Boy.

Halo came out of anesthetic very quickly and we headed home about an hour and a half after surgery. She was very dopey at home, unable to keep any water down, and clearly exhausted. I put the puppies in the warming box and fed them goat's milk, made Halo get them to poop and pee and went to bed with my alarm set for 3 hours sleep so I could get up and check everyone.

Today we are recovering nicely and Halo is with them now. It's been a learning experience and I don't recommend this to everyone ... certainly Adine is now thinking twice about breeding Karma!