Shadow Dance Ranch German Shepherd Dogs

Today – the pippies are still sleeping most of the time.  When they’re awake they’re eating. Flash Dance seems to be repeatedly late for supper (like my friend Josh). No worries though, he just dives into the middle of the pile, goes deep for one of the lower teats and with his bum straight up in the air, he kicks his little back feet like he was on a treadmill. Where is the camera when you need it!  All the pippies are developing as expected.  Today is the first day of the thermal stress sessions.  We take each pippy and place them in a box, alone on the cold floor, for 3 minutes. After a minute or so they make some noise and squirm around… at the end of the 3 minutes we hold them close, warm them and place them back into the nest so they can huddle with their litter mates.  This process causes their adrenal system to respond with a brief output of corticosteroid hormones, which helps them resist disease later on. These sessions will go on once a day, for one week.

In case you thought I have spelling issues, you’re right. I spelled puppies as pippies once and I liked the sound so well that it became their collective nickname. Here’s to the pippies

OK, I'm ready to go...

Well, today July 31, 2009 at 5:50 PM, Neshamah brought forth her first puppy with ease and elegance.  All day she cleaned herself and prepared, digging a den below the stump near our porch and digging the blankets that line her whelping box.  I just stepped away for 3 minutes to prepare her food and when I came back, there he was – big, black, beautiful, clean, a perfectly cut cord, and content – Lord of the Dance leads the way.  Wow, I can’t believe I missed it, and Neshamah didn’t even let me know.  Next, we cleaned the nose and mouth with the bulb, rubbed him dry, weighed him,  and gave him back to his mother to nurse.  Neshamah continued to clean herself and dig the blankets and then, one hour and twenty minutes later, came Barn Dance.  There were no obvious contractions or signs, just another cleaning of herself and there he was, clean, no sack, perfect cord…  OK, how was she doing this without being seen.  I was right there watching the whole time.  Twenty minutes later, out came Moon Dance.  We saw enough to know that she was removing the sac as the puppy began to emerge and she just continued through to the cord and the placenta.  We never saw one placenta through the entire birthing.

Another Perfect Delivery

She continued with the next two puppies about 20 minutes apart.  First, Fire Dance, had trouble breathing for a few minutes and we had to swing him and use the bulb repeatedly.  He is a strong survivor and he pulled through with no further complications.  Then, I walked out of the room and Neshamah came flying out looking for me, I passed her up and quickly replaced the blankets in the whelping box and she came running back in.  Denna, the other midwife, said she thought I should check my bedroom where Neshamah had been for 40 seconds.  I said “No way,” but checked anyway and sure enough, there was Rain Dance, on the bedroom floor, perfectly cleaned and happily wiggling – unbelievable.   Finally, a well needed two hour break for all of us.  Neshamah had time to feed and clean her new puppies and we could relax again.  Next was Happy Dance, who came out making noise, wiggling and welcoming his new life.  Two and a half more hours went by and since we knew there were at least two more puppies, we gave Neshamah a shot of Oxytocin to help her begin the contractions again.  Almost another hour went by, and finally Flash Dance came flying out, followed by Shadow Dance forty minutes later.  Next, we all fell asleep with eight new puppies happily nursing.

Meet the Puppies:

July 31, 2009
Number 1,   5:50 pm – Lord of the Dance, male, rainbow, 1 lb 3.8 oz
Number 2,  7:10 pm – Barn Dance, male, lt green, 12.7 oz
Number 3,  7:33 pm – Moon Dance, male, blue, 1 lb 2.8 oz
Number 4,  7:54 pm – Fire Dance, male, red, 13.8 oz
Number 5,  8:20 pm – Rain Dance, female, pink, 15.8 oz
Number 6, 10:24 pm – Happy Dance, male, yellow, 12.1 oz

August 1, 2009
Number 7,  1:50 am – Flash Dance, male, dk green, 13.6 oz
Number 8,  2:31 am – Shadow Dance, male, black, 9.3 oz

Happy Nap...

And such was Neshamah’s first birthing event…  July 31, 2009