poo day

Contented mum with her skirt of nursing babies this morning












Those of you who have been following this blog for a while will know that I never shy away from describing in graphic and sticky detail the, er, messier side of puppy rearing. You will remember the night of worry I had with Neka and her vomiting and diarrhea in the garden.

For Taika's litter, I had a very different poo story - but again it was such a worry.

Well, today is the day I regale you with tales of poo & placentas for this litter. It's not all puppy cuddles & warm milk, you know.

In the wild - and indeed in the captivity of breeders' whelping rooms - dogs and their relatives eat all the stuff that comes with newborn puppies, including the bag the puppy is delivered in, membranes, umbilical cord and placenta. It's kinda disgusting for us humans to consider, but it is a natural instinct, and in the wild the nutritious blood-filled placentas would be the only food the newly whelped dam would have for several days until she could leave her babies to hunt.

Not only do the placentas offer good nutrition for the dam, but some also believe that eating them encourages good maternal behaviour and the production of milk. So it's a good idea for her to have them. Some will even ask the vet performing a caesarian to return some of the placentas for this purpose.

So, we have adequately established that placentas = good. However, everything in moderation, is a useful tenet in this instance. I've seen it recommended that the breeder try to limit the bitch's consumption of placentas and take some of them away because in addition to all the good stuff, placentas - being so rich and full of blood - also produce thick, black diarrhea. You've seen or - even worse - smelled digested blood? Pretty disgusting. Well, placenta poo is digested blood with bells on.

That's what Neka was struggling with after her 9 puppies (and their 9 placentas) and that's what Keksi had last night.

But drama? Not a bit of it. Four times during the night she woke us and beetled off downstairs to the door. She's still moving very quickly for a lady who has just given birth 7 times, but she does take smaller quick steps! It's clear that she goes to the back garden to do her business at home, as that's where she heads each time. I have to call her back to the front door and the neighbouring park as we no longer have any grass out back thanks to past puppies.

Each time she simply scooted out to the park, relieved herself of a long wee and two great handfuls of black, tarry poo and then turned tail to return to her brood. No hassle, no drama, no accidents.

And this morning, a mere 30 hours after giving birth, no more black poo! Well, whaddeya know. I'm pretty sure I was still dealing with it 4 or 5 days after birth with the litter of 9. So perhaps the moral of this story is to limit the number of placentas eaten by the bitch to 7. That seems an ideal number. On this occasion, anyway. Have you ever heard that no two bitches and no two births are the same? Yeah, well, that. Inconvenient, n'est-ce pas?

There are some humans who even think it's a good idea to eat their own human placentas. But let's not go into that - diarrhea, green slime, black and red slime, vomit, etc, all of it is fair game on this blog, but not even I am willing to go there!

Did I say it's not all puppy cuddles & warm milk? Hell, it's not even mostly puppy cuddles & warm milk. And I haven't even gotten to the green stuff yet. You lucky people have all that to come.

But, first, here is a row of sleeping puppies from last night. You can see where Honey and Marilyn (and probably the rest of them too) have been wiping their green dye off onto the vet bed. It was changed for a clean one no less than 4 times yesterday. And you can see that Marilyn, 3rd from the top, is still sporting the slightest green tinge.



















And so to finish...
Someone asked me how I know that Junior is a domino and not just a brightly coloured black & tan. The answer is this: it's not always going to be easy to tell with puppies, but here was my proof with this puppy. The first indication of the domino pattern is in the white face - particularly the centre of the face where most other patterns are dark - and the very large white 'eyebrows'.
















Then, to look at the colour of the fur on his body; white on his belly and legs, shading gradually up through the sable-y colour you see here to a dark silvery-grey stripe down his back. Striking, no?















As it is with wolf sable puppies, I suspect this coat colour will change and change as time goes on. I'll keep you posted.