My sister's dog is having pups :)

HannahIOW

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

Could the vet not have made a home visit? This would never have happened when I was in practice. We'd have attended the poor dog in the comfort of her own home! I'm guessing it was one of these new OOH service vets?! :rolleyes:

Exactly, I don't know what was going through the vets mind. It was the middle of the night so yes an out of hours service. Just spoken to my mum and the weaker pup is feeding well from a syringe, always hungry! The others are able to feed and the mum is even occasionally cleaning the pups but not as often as she should be. Fingers crossed :j Think we have put it all down to the stress of keep visiting the vets etc. I may pop in this evening to have a peek for myself if everyone is not too tired.

~Chameleon~

Thanks, keep us updated on her progress and fingers crossed she'll settle down and get on with taking care of them. Such a shame she had to endure all this stress, especially on her first litter!

HannahIOW

Will do. She must wonder what on earth is going on. I was told that when the first pup had come out she ran away from it terrified lol.

UKTigerlily

Don't forget it is sometimes necessary for an animal to attand the Vet's, should a caesarian or other life saving treatment be needed then the Vets is the only place it will be done, i've known of police dogs being moved while in labour with Pups already born, whoever is your Sisters mentor (Assuming she has one?!) will have known it was serious enough to move her.

hethmar

Well, like Mrs T Id love to be fluffy but Im so worried about mentions of "first time - but everyone has to start somewhere".

Please god this doesnt mean your sister is going to continue making this dog breed. Particularly when she seems to have such a lousey vet. Never in my life have I heard of that sort of thing happening.

HannahIOW

hethmar wrote: »

Well, like Mrs T Id love to be fluffy but Im so worried about mentions of "first time - but everyone has to start somewhere".

Please god this doesnt mean your sister is going to continue making this dog breed. Why?? Particularly when she seems to have such a lousey vet. Never in my life have I heard of that sort of thing happening.

It was the emergency vet in the middle of the night. So quite obviously not her usual vet. My sister knows what she is doing with this breed. She revived the smallest puppy herself. So by your logic the first time is supposed to be 'perfect' for everyone even though they've never done it before? In my eyes everything would have been fine if the vet had come to the house rather than making the stupid decision of having the dog and pups carted off in the car, causing stress to the mother and preventing them from getting that early bond.

MrsTinks

Actually - most breeders I've ever come across tend to have what on here has been referred to as a "mentor". Another breeder, current or retired, often someone who knows the breed and any particular problems with them (some are more prone to complications or bonding issues than others apparently) who can be there to reassure and advise them through the labour - even if only on the other end of a phone.
If she is setting out to be a "proper" breeder then all the pups should hahe homes already lined up as mum and dad both have KC lines and wins behind them. If she is breeding for the love of the breed, because she is passionate about the improvement and protection of the breed then she won't overbreed or worry about making money out of these pups.
If she's more interested in money than the preservation of the breed... then I hope you will encourage her to spay the b!tch after this litter. There are too many pups and dogs being put down in shelters and pounds across the country as it is

As for housecalls - you're assuming this is the only emergency the vet was dealing with. Chances are they had anywhere from one or two other animals to deal with to several life or death calls in the night - going out to be a midwife at someones house is NOT the job of a vet! That is the job of the owner and breeder. If you want personal at home vet care then hire a vet especially for this and be prepared to pay the price as it will be steep! Don't take an emergency vet away from their other duties because someone has decided to breed their dog. More to the point - the vet can't carry every drug under the sun with them - and what if an emergency C-section had been needed? Should the vet have been expected to do that at the house too? Forgetting that at the surgery there is an oncall vet nurse to assist (and you need at least one of those if you do an emergency c-section).
I've been pretty supportive of your thread so far - trying to assume the best - but I will not stand idly by and see vets criticised for doing their jobs and actually being very responcible. There is no guarantee the mum would have bonded regardless - some b!tches are just not meant to be mums same as some women though lovely and loving people are not meant to be mums. Humans however have more choice in the matter than a dog...

HannahIOW

She probably does have a mentor, I know she has been in close contact with people 'in the know' (I don't know the correct terminology, i'm not anywhere near as much of a doggie person as she is) for several years, she just hasn't mentioned a mentor to me (I only get time to see my sister now and again. Only found out the dog was actually pregnant a few weeks ago lol).

Yes pups all have homes lined up, she's certainly not in this for the money. I agree with what you have just said about the vet, to be honest i hadn't considered those things. It's just my personal opinion that what happened with the vet (i still need to find out why they saw the vet the other two times) was causing extra stress on the mother. For all I know my sister could completely agree with the decision. As she's far more in the know with dogs then I expect she does.

Also the vet wasn't called to be a midwife at all, they were only called because the mother had become exhausted and there were still more pups to be delivered.

MrsTinks

And in return I will admit that there are bad eggs amongst Vets too (sadly) Just that based on what you have said here then this vet isn't a bad egg

I was debating on whether to include a couple of examples to back up my views above and as you have taken the "criticism" as it was intended and not a personal attack which sadly so many seem to these days *sigh* then I will share them

1 - my friend is a vet - as she is often rota'd to be on-call we often go to them for dinner so if she gets called out she is only 5 - 10 mins from the surgery. Once when we were there she got called out to a queen that had been struggling to deliver her kittens all day. As she knows this breeder well she anticipated there would probably be issues with the delivery and asked me to come along to help along with the vet nurse. (Reason being that these cats are in her oppinion often over bred leading to complications).
The queen had delivered one live kitten but was obviously in distress and couldn't deliver what ever was still inside. The emergency CS revealed that she had partially miscarried 2 other kittens but her body hadn't been able to reabsorb them. They had turned septic and it was franckly a miracle she was still alive! They had become nothing more than puss... gross to say the least! How the last kitten survived I still don't know!
She ended up calling the breeder with the cat still open saying that the only option for the cat was an emergency spay - the risk of the infection spreading was too great that if she didn't remove everything she would probably get scepticimia and die. If she'd done a house call then that critical operation would have been delayed and the cat may not have made it - she had no way to know until she opened the cat up to do the CS...

2 - about 5 years ago my cat was run over and I found him at 4:30am outside my back door (on my way to the airport to fly to visit my family...) and was rushed to the oncall vet - from call to being seen was less than 20 mins - if she had been playing midwife at someone's house then who would have seen my critically ill and injured cat? there is only one oncall vet for each area... Whilst other people with injured pets can make it to the surgery then the vet can't split herself into 6 to attend all of them at home even if they wanted...

What I MIGHT consider is why the dog hadn't been kept at the vets to labour the pups... but then if she was stressed by the unfamiliar setting it might have been thought she'd stress less if taken back home again - especially if there appeared to be little or no immediate risk to the mum or her pups

If mum hasn't bonded with these pups your sister is in for a VERY busy 8 weeks and I would say even if this dog has impeccable lines and loads of wins then at the very least consider not breeding for a couple of years from her...

HannahIOW

Oh those poor cats... I'm glad they were alright in the end and yes I agree it's not good really for a vet to be tied up delivering babies when they could be saving another animals life.
I will speak to my mum later and see what else I can find out about the other vet trips, and see how everyone is doing. Last I heard the mum was cleaning them a little but not often enough, and tolerating them feeding from her (except the tiny one, think they have accepted that he will be syringe fed for now). If she doesn't bond at all then I doubt my sister will ever decide to breed her again, not worth the risk of it happening again really.