Red is not pregnant. This was a false pregnancy. Behaviors, mammary gland swelling, all of it. Well, the weight gain I helped along with egg yolk and lard to entice her to eat more.
She just didn't seem big enough to be expecting puppies next week and when I took her temperature (3 days in a row with 2 different digital thermometers) it registered much too low (98-ish) unless she was within 10 hours of giving birth. Something just didn't seem right. I took her to the vet and he gave her an ultrasound. No puppies.
I was totally shell-shocked. I went home and tried to distract myself with a novel and ended up falling asleep on the couch. Roger got home about 6:15pm and I was still really out of it and decided just to go to bed. I slept the clock around.
So now we wait (and put Red on a diet!). Eventually her Prolactin levels will subside and hopefully she will come into heat again (we just don’t know when). The breeder guarantees 3 live pups, so we will take her back to be bred again when she comes back into season. She is 5 years old though, and with this having been her first heat in 2 years, we have some concerns about when she’ll have another heat.
In the meantime, well, I’m loving the ‘new’ floor and I probably wouldn't have been compelled to uncover it if I hadn't thought puppies were on the way. As for the whelping box, it’s put together with screws so that it can be dismantled and stored for reuse.
I’ll leave the blog up. Maybe we’ll have some hunting posts to make between now and the next breeding. Always an adventure…..
