april 7 2023

so as we approach the birthing---- i am reminded of odd things--- like the "UNDER PROBLEM"

the impending birth seems to stimulate something in the most modern of dogs  to revert to finding an exclusive place to give birth-- and in modern life... they have to improvise...The under problem is simply----- under a set of stairs--- or under the porch or under something--- dig a hole and you've got something over your head  and they go through this and it is the reason that I've got that cheap plastic fencing around the front porch on this house because once they get under there and they're having contractions you have no idea what's going on and boy it's hard to convince them to get out of there.. so we have a rule i  believe I had a rule once labor is anywhere near imminent you don't let Mama loose regardless of how well trained she is

 

you know what will remind you to do it ?? just think of crawling under my Front  porch to try and get a Great Dane out of  there and then crawling back in to be sure she did not leave a pup there....

again it was Betty from Cape Cod I do have a lovely picture of her somewhere standing in the snow--- hair hanging very disheveled  right out where our generator now is with the puppet two hands ---after birth still hanging.. screaming  “it is a puppy”I and the mother running back for the front door you can just hear her saying “I have enough of those inside I don't need anymore..”

I can't count the number of times it turns out not to have been a bowel movement but a puppy both in the house and when they've been taken outside supposedly to go to the bathroom which is why you just never would let a female out loose—must be on a leash--- a long leash so she can h ave a l;ittle room – but not loose !

 

One of our more spectacular  birthings  happened when the  kids were small. Gwen came running up tto me in the barn with a wet newborn puppy  in her hands..”where did you get that?” turns out – the stone wall in front of the house.... where Janine was screaming “ I found another”  -- this went on for a while til we had 12 absolutely darling black bassett hounds--- where  the neighbors black newly neutered lab had “given it on e. last shot”. Polly... the mother was huge----and somehow in the process had lacerated her milk department—so  the kids had teh job of getting all the. Pups to have some colsterum around a significant cut on her underside-- which did not seem to bother her--( like c sections don't seem to bother the milk depatment...). 

Being a bassett it was really under.

 

The rest of that story was that it happened after my house had burned to the ground and we were living in a house trailer parked at an angle in the yard...  I remember that Christmas well—we did have a tree—in the kitchen area+ teh litter of 12 black pups+2 electric cars given to the kids by their father( my first husband)  -- they managed to drive them  down the hall for a turn around in the bathroom  and back to a turn around the puppies in the kitchen... did I mention my h usband had back surgery and was in bed in the very back---  14 horses in the barn—water occasionally frozen  in a hose across the surface  from the street....—and the trailer was heated by keroscene carried by me in 2 five gallon jerry  cans daily..  oh... how could I forget..... a 55 gallon lump of ice sliding around  in the back of my truck. Which once was  an attempt to carry water from the neighbors to water the horses which got left overnight... water expands when it freezes and the plastic drum was split – so I had only the ice left.  

Just when you think you can’t.... you can.