[yorkietalkjilly]

What if you should lose her due to septicemia or some other quirk of whelping as we did out Doberman bitch when we bred her. We'd gone through an apprenticeship with her breeder at her ranch on weekends and myself during the week, we'd studied all about genetics, pregnancy, whelping, helped in whelpings, used the breeder's highly-esteemed vet of choice and still everything went wrong as she whelped early, and we lost a pup stillborn, almost lost another she'd pushed aside & was cold in its sack but was revived, 3 died on the 3rd day of life as their momma also did from what the vet said was an infection/septicemia of her blood from her milk/mammary glands which had quickly flared into a full-body infection w/in 18 hours or so at the vet hospital and then my beautiful girl was was gone. I had to hand raise the rest of the litter 24/7 from Day 3 after my girl died and it was sheer hell. I got no sleep for 2 - 3 weeks except for a few cat naps. You have to stimulate the pups to poop, pee, feed them every 3-4 hours day and night, keep them warm enough, carry them back and forth to the vet for blood tests and check-ups if anything goes wrong with the litter, give them medicine during the day and night, deal with colic from the formula, nurture them and fill in in every way for mom right up through weaning, teaching them about all the things she normally imprints on their brains, should you lose her.

It cost us a fortune in money for all the ER fees, hospital costs for her & the pups and in exhaustion, constant work but that was nothing compared to the pain and tragedy of losing our beautiful Dobie girl, Cobra, who was gone forever. I'll always miss her. She was so smart and elegant.

Unless you are fully prepared to face a potential life-threatening emergency at home, know everything to do in a sudden pregnancy/whelping/puppy-crash emergency, have all the equipment, drugs & know how to use them until you can stabilize her/pups for safe transport to the vet, and fully understand genetics and she and her stud are cleared as free from all health defects going back generations so as not to pass any genetic medical or serious temperament issues along to the pups, I would not breed my girl, knowing what I know now.