What and how at birth!?
 

I know this may sound silly to all the veterans here, but my first female Yorkie is pregnant and due in a week. I have always been a cat person and only fell in love with Yorkies recently, so am a novice with dogs. Any advice on what to have at hand and how to proceed? Luckily my Vet also breeds Yorkies and will be on standby, but I would like to be there for her and do as much as I can.

book
 

You need the book..Canine Reproduction...MM just posted about it adn I have had it for many years. look it up in the posts and order asap. Good luck

I was in your shoes a little over a week ago. I had no CLUE what do expect or do. Thanks to the good people of yorkie talk, I made it through this experience and so did my sweet yorkie, Angel.

She had a littler of 3 pups and all of them survived. They are healthy, strong and happy puppies.

As many people on this forum can tell you, I FREAKED OUT in the middle of her delivery. I thought angel was trying to eat her puppies when in fact she was trying to carry them off. I didn't expect that and it worried me. A lot of people on here talked me through it. Keep in mind, most dogs have their puppies in the middle of the night, just like Angel. So not only did the members here help me, but they stayed up with me most of the night and were right by my side (via the internet).

There is a lot of reading material online about whelping and what goes on. The good AND the bad.

Have you taken her to the vet? Do you know how many puppies to expect? If she's around 53 days along you can get an x-ray and see how many puppies are in there. It's good to know, because if she's supposed to have 4 puppies and only 2 comes out, something is wrong and you know to get her to the vet or animal hospital.

Keep her on puppy food. No "DOG" food. The puppies inside need the nutrients that the puppy food has.

Do you have any supplies ready for her delivery?

LOL! I thought Bitsy was trying to eat her pups too! I think I missed your thread about Angel having pups. Lots of babies being born on here :)

LOl I dont know HOW you missed it lol. I was going insane!!!!! lol

I was freaking out, calling the animal hospital every 10 minutes and posting on here every few minutes.

When the second pup was born, angle was cloed in my closet. She was there because right when she starting pushing with the first one I told my guy to make some coffee since it will be a long night. The door was BARELY cracked open and she darted out of my room and under the couch in the living room. She had her first one under my couch lol.

So for the second, she was closed in my closet. I checked on her at 4:06am and she was pushing. I checked again at 4:08 and not only did she have the pup out, but she had it in her mouth, just hanging there, limp as could be.

I had to pry her mouth open to get the puppy out. She wasn't moving. I revived her just fine but I was scared sh*tless lol.

After she tried to eat the first one (or so I thought) this REALLY creeped me out. So ontop of nursing the first one, I tried nursing the second. She didn't want the bottle.

After the second one was ok I layed her in the box with the first puppy (on a heating pad) while I checled on angel. SHe was fine now and ready to nurse. She came in, cleaned them up some more and then nursed them. While doing this anothe rone popped out.

After that everything was fine but it was hectic up til then.

I'll have to look it up and read it :p I was lucky that Bitsy had hers late in the morning so I wasn't up all night. Me and my son were getting ready to head out the door shopping, I had keys and purse in my hand, and my son said "MOM, Bitsy has something hanging out of her butt", LOL! I thought he was joking (it was April fools day and we had been playing jokes on each other all morning) and I brushed it off cause our vet said she wouldn't go for another week to 10 days. He insisted so I looked and sure enough a pup was half way hanging out :eek: I had not signed up on here yet so I had our vet on the phone half the time asking her the dumbest questions. I'll check out your thread.....if you reacted anything like me it's probably really funny! :D

LOL it wasn't funny at the time, but now that I think about it, I did act a bit crazy lol

Here's the link to the thread. It's quite long though.. http://www.yorkietalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5632

I love hearing about puppies - good luck to everyone and you are soooo lucky to be experiencing the wonders of birth....big sigh......... ;)

LOL, I know EXACTLY what you mean! I'll check it out :)

Be prepaired to say to yourself "this chick is NUTS" lol

I just finished reading it all and I could relate to every bit of it, LOL!!! :p I didn't realize we had so much in common :D My pups were an accidental litter too from my male and female! And I'm getting mine fixed too! I could never be a breeder either!

I like to think of it as temporary insanity :p

LOL it was definatly an experience I wont soon forget. It was only 8 days ago but seems like it was months ago.

While it was happening I kept thinking to myself "WHAT AM I GONNA DO??"

I even asked the animal hospital if I could bring her there so they can finish the birthing process for me. They were like "we only have 2 doctors here and we need them to be available for a REAL emergency". Sad thing is, at this point I thought it WAS an emergency. I thought she was trying to devour her pups. I didn't know how to feed them, and i was panicking.

I live in the middle of nowhere and have no help from local vets or hospitals. When the vets close they DONT open back up. They dont have after hours.

The animal hospital is 35 minutes away by car and they only have 2 doctors on staff. No wonder I couldn't find a local breeder to help me. SHEESH!

The birthing thing
 

Hi all of you who replied. Thanks for the encouragment! I did have Gigi at the Vet (Vet also breeds yorkies) and on X-ray we could see 5 puppies clearly, but could be one more hidden! She's huge. She is already eating puppy food and my Vet is close by and said she's on 24 hour cellphone standby which is a relief. I just have to know what to have ready, heating pads,etc, etc.

These sites have helpful info.

http://www.petbitsforyou.com/

http://www.debbiejensen.com/temp_chart.html

Good luck with the new babies! :)