November 6, 2019 was the scheduled breakout day for the reforms. Guilty and Moses puppies will be delivered via a planned c-section. Guilty’s last litter was born this way because she was having 9 puppies. This litter I opted for another c-section because it was going to be a small litter and I wanted to be prepared for any problems that may arise being that I live 50 miles from my reproduction clinic.

We arrived at Veterinary Village at 12:30 pm to have pre-surgical testing done.

Blood was drawn so a clotting panel could be run, I had her pre-surgical chemistries and CBC done a few days before. A progesterone test was ran as well to make sure the timing was right on the delivery.

A ECG (electrocardiogram) was done pre op as well to make sure her heart was in working order.

A pre-surgical ultrasound was done to check for puppy gut motility and to check their heart rates. The puppies were doing great so it was time to prep for surgery. An IV Catheter was placed and different medications were administered.

Guilty was hooked up to the monitors to check her blood pressure, her oxygen level, heart rate during surgery. She was hooked up to IV Fluids to flush her system out while under. She was hooked up to general anesthesia and oxygen to keep her sleeping during the procedure. A technician was visually monitoring her as well.

When I had a radiograph done a few days before surgery it was believed that at least 5 puppies were in there. After the Dr. brought out the uterus all the puppies were in the right horn. Each uterus has two horns a right and left, usually the eggs get dispersed between the two and attach to each horn. Not this time for Guilty, all 5 puppies decided to cram into the right side which made it very big. After all the puppies were out the Dr. checked the other side and she could put her fingers up in it so it wasn’t blocked.

This happens to be puppy number two. Once the doctor removes the puppies from the uterus she breaks the sack around the puppy, she then removes the placenta and hands the puppy off to the staff so they can clear the airway and get the puppy breathing.

After clearing of the airway, wiping the puppies off and warming up the staff checked the puppies over for deformities. They will check in the mouth and make sure the puppies don’t have cleft palates that will cause a problem in the future. The third puppy born was very small compared to the first two, when his mouth was checked he had a full cleft palate. He wasn’t small due to the cleft since he wasn’t nursing yet as he was getting all his nutrients via his umbilical cord so something else must of been going on with him besides the deformed mouth. I made the decision to put this puppy to sleep. I have never had a cleft palate in all my litter, I keep thinking that my mentor told me once that if you breed long enough you see many thing and she was right. It’s unfortunate that this had to happen but nothing could be done to prevent this. Hopefully I will never have another one. Two more puppies were born after that. They were healthy.

Dr. Allmann suturing up the uterus and putting everything back in place. She then proceeded to suture up the abdominal wall and skin layer.

Once the airways were cleared and puppies doing well they removed the placenta and weighed each one along with putting their id collar on.

Because Guilty wasn’t producing milk like she should I wanted the puppies to have plasma before they went home just in case Guilty didn’t produce mile and colostrum in the time needed to be beneficial to the puppies. The plasma will do the job of colostrum.

After seeing that all 5 pups were in the one horn and how big that side of the uterus as well as how big the puppies were I made the right decision to have the c-section done. It’s so much easier on the mom and pups to do a planned c-section than to do an emergency one. All pups and mom recovered nicely. I had to administer plasma two more times in a 24 hour period, I needed to bottle feed every 2-3 hours for 2 days until Guilty’s milk came in. By Friday afternoon Guilty’s mild started coming in and the puppies could nurse on her. I haven’t had to bottle feed since. The pups are all gaining weight and doing very well.

I thank the staff at Veterinary Village for another job well done, from the surgical AI to the c-section. Thanks for all your knowledge and professional staff.