Where Are We At With Glory’s Breeding? Part 3

Where Are We At With Glory’s Breeding? Part 3

A couple weeks ago I wrote Part 1 of Where Are We At With Glory’s Breeding. If you missed it you can read the full version here. The short version is: I talked about preparing your dog for breeding by doing genetic tests, other tests that can be done, picking a stud dog, the heat cycle of the bitch, breeding and implanting of the eggs. Part 2 I talked about pregnancy confirmation, a app on my phone that you can follow along and read what is happening, the food I was feeding her and milk development. If you want to read the full version here.

So where are we at with Glory’s breeding?

We are at week 7 and day 53 of her pregnancy. Glory continues to gain weight and is being fed more food to provide the proper nutrition to the growing puppies. There were a few days she didn’t want to eat much so I had to supplement with some canned food. I believe her belly is so full with puppies she doesn’t have room for much food so not eating much. She needs to keep eating so she will have milk to feed the puppies so I’m getting her whatever she will eat. I took her to work with me last Thursday which was day 46 of her pregnancy. I wanted to weigh her, take a xray to see if we could count puppies as skeletons can be seen as early as day 45. The xray was inclusive as we were only able to see 3 very light skeletons. The reason this was is because I bred Glory over a 4 day period. She continually passed eggs and they were fertilized on different days so the puppies fertilized on the first day of breeding would show up and the ones fertilized on the last day of breeding wouldn’t as they still needed a few days to catch up and have their skeletons developed enough for us to see. She did weigh in at 89.2#. She was 78# when I bred her so she gained 11 pounds.

Today I am taking Glory with me to work again to have another xray taken so hopefully this time we can see all the puppies skeletons and have a more accurate count so I know about how many to expect during delivery.

Last weekend I got Nellie’s whelping box out of retirement and set it up in the living room. I thought Glory needed a box that she could call her own so I painted some paw prints on the front and labled it “puppies on board”. When I got it all set up Nellie jumped in it right away she laid down and took a nap. I have been feeding Glory in the whelping box to get her used to it.

This week I first started seeing the puppies move around and when I put my hand on her abdomen I can feel them moving also. It was truly a wonderful experience. I’m sure Glory doesn’t think it is such a wonderful experience having 5 plus puppies moving around in her belly but to me it was one of the greatest things I have experienced. Her mammary development is coming along nicely too. It’s coming around so much that she is now waddling when she walks. We stopped going to the lake so her only exercise now has been running around the yard.

This next week I will continue to prepare for the delivery of Glory and Thunders puppies.

We are joining Linda at 2browndawgs and Jodi at Heart Like A Dog for this great blog hop.
>