Chris jugando con la camada M

4th November 2003. Eight o’clock in the morning. It’s freezing. “Tirana” wakes up as happy as usual, jumping around like a crazy goat, although her belly is immense weighing some extra 20 kilos,m and we know through the X-ray  that we ought to expect ten huge puppies any time! Yet there are no significant changes in her behavoiour nor her temperature and although everything is ready and the whelping box all set in my bedroom, it doesn’t look as if she is to whelp.

After watching her behave as if she ain’t preggie, I decide that I better call the Vet and take her over for another check-up. We agree that it is a good idea to perform a new u-scan and see what is going around inside there, so once I am finished with feeding the rest of the gang and taking them out for a walk, I drive her over to the Clinic.

A thorough inspection and monitorising shows that she is not yet plenty dilated and the contractions are mild, there is no phoetal stress and it clearly looks as if though she will not whelp for another 24 to 36 hours. So off we go back home.

On the way back it pours cats and dogs; the wind is strong and there is a thick fog so I can hardly see the road before me. I drive carefully, especially while crossing the mountains near home. The wheather is really awful, really unpleasant.

“Tirana” is sitting in the back of the Jeep Cherokee, looking through the window as usual, panting in excitement. She loves to ride by car!

Yet, all at sudden she produces a strange sound. And she jumps over to the back seat and starts licking the crown of my head in real excitement. Why would she?

Immediately after I catch that peculiar smell... and as I scent it, I immediately decide to stop at a ditch and check what is going on. She looks as if its none of her business and wags her tail as usual, quite happy to be in the back sit... but when I open the ar’s back door... I immediately see a little puppy crawling around in desperation, still caught in the phoetal sac!.

Camada M de Castro-Castalia

I jump in, close the back door, open the sac, get the puppy out, cut the umbilical cord with my own teeth, massage that little cold body and when the puppy is fully recovered and breathing normally, I put it under my pull-over, start the heating at maximum speed and jump into the front sit, decided to drive as fast as hell.

I pretty well know that I still have another 10-15 minutes to go, before I get home and the wheather is not going to help. Not under such circumstances.

“Tirana” has jumped back to the car trunk and seems to be quite intrigued with the smells there; she sniffs and licks and looks very interested in what is going on and everytime she hears the little puppy, she puts her head up listening carefully.

Malik de Castro-Castalia

Just a few minutes later, while I am still on the main road trying to rush home, “Tirana” repeats the previous action; off she jumps to the back seat and again she licks my neck. And there is again that peculiar smell... so again I stop the car and again I go back and I open the door, and jump inside and there is another puppy in its sac, crawling around dragging its placenta... and again I grab it, I  cut the umbilical cord with the teeth, dry the baby with my hands, clean the mucus and put it with its litterbrother under my pull-over. What else can I do but try to keep them warm against my own body?

We finally get home. Wow, it was about time! And as we jump off the car and I open the door, “Tirana” is clearly showing symptoms that she is about to whelp a third one. We fly up the stairs. I am holding the two pups who move quite fast under my pull-over with one hand, and with the other I am holding the other one that already shows through the vulva! Please, please, I tell “Tirana” (and myself), do not let it off until we are upstairs and you are in the whelping box, please, please! But  she cannot hold it inside. No way! So off it comes in the middle of the stairs. She grabs it with immense care in her mouth and brings it into my room and   jumps into the whelping box. What a stress!

Yet this time, she behaves naturally as the mom she really ought to be. This is her first litter, I know that, and I can pretty well understand that as a novice, she may not perform well and yet, once she is inside the whelping box, it is as if a chip in her mind is switched on... she opens the sac, she licks the puppy, she cuts the cord, she swallows the placenta and she looks fully aware of what needs to be done minute by minute.

That gives me time to finish cleaning the other two and inspect them, two lovely red brindle boys, “Massaï” and “Miron”. I will never know which of the two came first. The third one is a deep red girl, “Mitsouko” and the rest keep coming fast and sound, five more boys in a row “Mister Magic”, “Malik”, “Merlin”, “Midas” and finally two other lovely red girls, “Mazurka” and “Moníssima”. In less than four hours the whelping is finished. All alive and all well and healthy.

After such a non-stop and hectic whelping, “Tirana” is still looking as good as she did just a few hours before... She keeps wagging her tail although she looks as if though she is now fully conscious of the immense task before her. And she does well. Very well.

Once I am a bit more relaxed, I call “Jota” and give him a blow-by-blow account of the trip back home from the Clinic. And we both laugh for quite a while with the story.

(Original text written by Christina of Lima-Netto and Federico Baudin specifically for this web page and protected with Copyright. Not even whole can be reproduced not partially by any way, without Castro-Castalia's express assent in writing).