04/07/2021
It is with heavy hearts we write this post…
After a very long, heartbreaking weekend, Rylee has finished having her puppies.
We noticed some signs of complications with her pregnancy on Friday. We reached out to our vet immediately for another opinion. They informed us the discharge could be very normal, took some x-rays and an ultrasound, and sent us home. The first puppy was then born, a stillborn and we went back to the vet for a C-section. Our local vet would not perform a C-section since they were still pretty early.
We then had another stillbirth on Sunday, so we went to the animal ER vet in Sioux Falls and they felt as though this stillborn puppy was blocking the birth canal, but took X-rays and an ultrasound and determined the rest had strong heart beats and would be birthed normally.
Monday morning we still had yet to have a living puppy (we were in contact with our local vet via phone to send updates and pictures over the weekend to keep them informed) and our local vet recommended we bring her in for more X-rays and another ultrasound. They claimed everything looked normal and to continue keeping them informed. At that time they felt as though a C-section could be done, but wanted to give it more time.
From there we decided to get yet another opinion from our old vet who said we should have done the C-section on Friday when we first tried to. We picked Rylee up from our local vet and drove her to our old vet who would actually perform the C-section to get the rest out.
We recovered 2 more alive puppies and then lost one of them. We have one puppy that survived the whole ordeal, he is very healthy and doing great. This little guy has already found his forever home and definitely won’t be in short supply of mom’s milk. Mom is very sore and tired but she will recover.
We have decided to retire Rylee from the breeding program following this whole ordeal. Our next expected litter of puppies will be towards the end of 2022. This litter will be 94% European and fully OFA health tested. Mom is a brindlequin and dad will be a blue so we will be expecting a GORGEOUS litter.