The Joys of Being a Dog Breeder

First off, I’m bone tired, so if this post makes little to no sense try to bear with me..

Delilah finally got a wee bit of colostrum at about 2 am last night. The operative term here is ‘little’ – the most minuscule droplets I’ve ever seen out of a bitch. Not nearly enough to nourish the pups, but at least they did get a little bit from her, which is important for their immune systems.

Since I happen to have another nursing bitch in the house, I’ve so far avoided having to bottle feed the pups to help them out. I’m not sure, however, that bottle feeding wouldn’t possibly be easier. Here’s our current routine:

Get pups, put on the bed. Grab Delilah, put on bed next to pups, wrestle her onto her side (I’m not kidding about this, either – you have to physically wrestle her down onto her side, then pin her there so she can’t bolt for the door).

Put pups on nipples and let them at least try to nurse, as their suckling will help Delilah’s milk to come down. There’s a fine line here, however, because if they try to nurse too hard, for too long, they’ll exhaust themselves and give up. So, as soon as they start to get restless, I remove them, pack them in a basket, and haul them down to Bunny’s room.

Once there, I grab whichever one of Bun’s pups is awake, then grab Bunny, and put them both on the bed. Once the Bunny pup is nursing, I sneak Delilah’s pups in as well. Bunny isn’t thrilled about this arrangement, but she’s being very tolerant. So long as one of her own pups is nursing, she’ll lie still long enough for Delilah’s pups to top up.

I then wipe bottoms, pack them back into their basket, put Bunny and her puppy back into the whelping box, and take Delilah’s pups back up to Delilah’s room.

Repeat every two hours. Whee, dog breeding sure is fun.

First photos of Delilah’s pups (who we’ve been referring to as the Deedle Bops, which should be proof enough of how sleep deprived both Sean and I are) —

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchbulldogs/sets/72157619967869982/

Twelve day photos of Bunny’s pups, who are all FAT as can be and finally have open eyes. They are the cutest, chubbiest little monkeys you can imagine, and it’s impossible to see them and not want to pick them up and blow raspberries on their tummies.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/frenchbulldogs/sets/72157619883408409/