The Deadly Dog Show (Roger and Suzanne South American Mystery Series Book 6)
Page 25
“Hell, no!” Sherry looked surprised at Suzanne’s question. “How many hours were you in labor with Robert? And you only had one! According to Juliet’s x-ray, she has somewhere between 10 and 12 puppies in there. That’s one very full uterus to get everyone lined up and moved down and out. She hasn’t had any really strong contractions yet. Give her time – it could take several more hours before she gets it in gear,” Sherry added with a chuckle. She leaned over to feel Juliet’s side as Juliet let out a little groan and a strong quiver went through her body. “Then, again, she may be getting ready to do something right now. Let’s get back inside.”
Sherry and Juliet went on to prove that experience was indeed the best teacher. The first puppy, a boy, popped out within 15 minutes of our return to the spare bedroom, oops the maternity suite, and her whelping box. Juliet alternated pacing the floor and lying on her side in the whelping box, panting until the blessed event. Out came a puppy attached by an umbilical cord to what was left of a placenta. Sherry, carrying the newborn pup in a clean towel, had positioned herself properly to catch the package as it emerged. She quickly opened the water sac surrounding the puppy, and cleaned its mouth and nostrils. Then with a piece of unwaxed dental floss, she tied off the cord and snipped it.
She rubbed the puppy vigorously with the towel to stimulate the first breaths saying, “sometimes this is enough and sometimes it isn’t.” This was one of those “isn’t” times. She carefully supported the puppy’s head and neck, while she swung the puppy upside down a couple of times, to help clear the lungs. Her effort was rewarded with an indignant squeal from the puppy, now a free-breathing, healthy firstborn. Sherry had prepared a few breeder essentials for this moment---a pile of template forms for sketching the markings on each pup so we could tell them apart after the event and record vital statistics for each. Suzanne was the designated group scribe. She sketched the spots and recorded time of birth. Sherry weighed the puppy and announced 14.5 ounces for Suzanne to record. Under comments, Suzanne recorded “none”. Sherry handed the puppy to Juliet, who had just finished eating the material discharged after the puppy. This discharge, including the placenta, was a rich source of hormones to stimulate her contractions in preparation for the next puppy’s birth. Juliet licked and nuzzled the first puppy, stimulating it to start nursing. Then things quieted down for a bit while we waited for puppy #2 to emerge. Based on the ultrasound exams and an X-ray, we had an estimated puppy count of 11 to expect in this litter. It was going to be a long night!
Sherry offered Juliet water and cottage cheese, plus a couple of Tums tablets. She explained, for things to go smoothly during this process, it was important to keep her well hydrated, and, with the cottage cheese and Tums, her body stores of calcium high. Sherry encouraged Juliet to get up and walk around in the nursing suite when she wanted to, which was seldom. All of Juliet’s energy was focused on birthing, nursing, and mothering a growing litter of puppies.
Puppies #2 and #3, both girls, came at half-hour intervals and were duly recorded. Everything had gone well thus far and things looked good.
Puppy #4, another boy, decided to make things exciting by demonstrating a classic breech presentation, butt first. Sherry did some reaching around in the birth canal to rotate the fetus into the proper position. Soon another 15-ounce puppy joined the group assembled in the whelping box, nursing, squeaking, and sleeping. Suzanne finally got to make an entry under “comments” on her puppy information sheet.
Juliet was getting a little tired and the gap between births was getting noticeably longer. Puppy #5, a girl, was born while Juliet was walking around the whelping box. Juliet suddenly stopped directly in front of Roger, who was sitting on the floor watching the new pups. Suddenly, a puppy and a pint or so of associated fluids was air mailed directly into Roger’s lap. Juliet stepped back into the whelping box, while Roger handed the new puppy to Sherry and excused himself to take a shower. Suzanne got to make another entry under “comments” on the puppy’s sheet.
Puppies #6-11 included another breech birth, a smaller than average puppy, a couple of pups needing more than a simple swing to start breathing, and a progressively more tired Juliet, now taking as long as an hour between puppies.
“That’s it,” declared Suzanne after #11, another girl, arrived.
“Not so quick,” corrected Sherry. “The X-ray isn’t definitive. There can sometimes be another pup or two hiding up there. Let’s just wait and watch for a bit longer.”
Once again, experience was the best teacher. Puppy #12, another boy and the final littermate, was born about 1.5 hours later. We had a healthy, hungry litter of 12 puppies, 8 girls and 4 boys. An exhausted Juliet was impersonating Super Mom and nursing the litter more or less continuously. The next morning Robert had his first visit to the puppies and got to give one a gentle pat-pat under Juliet’s watchful, but permissive, eye.
I couldn’t resist quoting the famous line that ended “Casablanca”, which I had seen about a dozen times. “Robert, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!”
-------------------------------------------------THE END--------------------------------------------------------
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
After you finish "The Deadly Dog Show": Please use a bit of your valuable time to write a review and post it on Amazon. Amazon makes this quick and easy on the book's home page. Written reviews are important to both readers and authors. Positive reviews sell more books. A few sentences are all that is necessary for a useful review. Of course, I hope you will enjoy this story. But, even if you didn’t, please think about providing a review that tells possible readers what you liked and didn't like about the book.
Thank you.
If you want to read more about Suzanne and Roger, and I’m sure you will, their previous South American mystery novels "The Surreal Killer", set in Peru and Northern Chile, and "The Ambivalent Corpse" and "The Matador Murders", set mostly in Uruguay, are also available from Amazon KDP. "The Ambivalent Corpse" introduces most of the recurring characters and is the best place to start the series, followed by “The Surreal Killer”, the next book in the series chronologically.
http://www.amazon.com/Ambivalent-Corpse-Crime-Meant-ebook/dp/B0060ZFRQG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319989507&sr=1-1.
And
http://www.amazon.com/The-Surreal-Killer-ebook/dp/B007H21EFO/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1330988453&sr=1-2
And
http://www.amazon.com/Matador-Murders-American-Mystery-ebook/dp/B008QD4BJE/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343522003&sr=1-3&keywords=matador+murders
The shorter novella featuring Roger and Suzanne, "The Body in the Bed", is also set in Montevideo, Uruguay. A novelette, "The Body in the Parking Structure", is set in Los Angeles. Both shorter books are also available from Amazon at
http://www.amazon.com/South-American-Mystery-Series-ebook/dp/B00A1PZZ86/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1352084384&sr=1-6&keywords=the+body+in+the+bed
And
http://www.amazon.com/Body-Parking-Structure-ebook/dp/B008PDV9WC/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343432381&sr=1-1&keywords=the+body+in+the+parking+structure.
You can learn a lot more about Suzanne, Roger, and the author at their blog site, located at http://rogerandsuzannemysteries.blogspot.com. There are convenient links to all of my books at the blog site, as well as a lot of information about me, about writing a mystery series, about South America, and about our German Shorthaired Pointer dogs (including the real Jolie, the model for Juliet in this book).
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