It is no secret that I breed border terriers, and that I have experienced public scrutiny for partaking in this hobby. As such, it’s not surprising that this blog often shares posts that are in support of ethical breeders.
So, today, I share a story from another Australian breeder on breeding a litter of golden retrievers, and how it went anything but according to planned. It’s a story on how ethical breeders struggle through hardship, and again illustrates that there is no money to be made from ethical breeding.
We had a great mating and a text book pregnancy until 58 days. My bitch seemed to double in size over night. Within 24 hours we were at the vet having an ultrasound. We thought there were six pups and the vet was worried about the pups heart rates. We went home and were on watch for signs of labour. We went back for a scan and the heart rates had picked up but my bitch hadn’t. Another 24 hours and my bitch wasn’t looking well and her joints had started to swell. I was syringing lectade into her as she wouldn’t eat or drink.
She couldn’t get comfortable and I felt she was trying to be brave when I was with her so as heart breaking as it was I sat outside the door and left her to try and settle. It broke my heart to hear her try to lie down. She stood the whole time!! I kept calling the vet and emergency vet to ask questions and thank goodness for the emergency vet at 3am talking to me or I would have gone insane! Everyone kept saying “just watch her it sounds like she is in labour”, “any time now, just be patient”, “the first stages can take a while”. I was home on my own and wanted to be strong for my girl so would go outside and sit down and just sob, wipe my eyes and go back into her with a huge smile and tell her what a great job she was doing. I rubbed her back and tummy and made a sling to try and hold her belly to give her a little relief. We both didn’t sleep for two days.
The next day I couldn’t take it and knew she had had enough too. I took her into the vet and we decided to give her a cesarian. This is the part I feel so very terrible about. I started to have chest pains, a panic attack. I couldn’t breathe and was shaking terribly. My girl kept looking at me and I was falling apart. The nurses made me go outside for a walk but I felt so dreadful leaving Zena alone. I had done this to her, I had wanted this litter and I had made the commitment to do this with her!! The last thing I said to the vet was “Whatever happens, save my girl”.
Comments
Zoe Clark
Wow. Congratulations to you and to Zena on a job well done. I had, well, MY DOG had two litters of pups. The first was only three, the second six. Maxine was a labrador retriever. I’m happy to say she didn’t have any problems, and it was still traumatic for me. Like you, I banish myself from the room and am sitting on the stairs crying, and angry with myself for doing this to my girl. She birthed the litter of three pretty easily though, and was a wonderful mom. We did do it a second time – and while 6 was a bigger handful, she still did a great job. But I didn’t want to do it again – it’s a lot of work and a lot of wear & tear on Maxine. I can’t imagine going through what you did. Kudos for taking such good care of Zena and her pups.
Xavier Lang
Crazy! Thank you for sharing. I thought of you and your blog recently: I was at a party and my love of dogs came up. One of the guests said, “I bet you could be a breeder and make a lot of money doing that.” I shook my head no, and patiently explained all of the things I’ve read from your blog. :-)