Getting Ready

We are so excited about this litter .... diamond because that is one of the gemstones for this calendar date, but also because these are 2 such amazing pugs: our beautiful Lilly (Pickwick's Thrill on Blueberry Hill) and Robert (GCH Hill Country's I'll Bee Your Shining Star).

​The adventure all began with March 29th's AI and the pregnancy was confirmed with the ultra sound on May 6. ​

The x-ray a bit later then confirmed 3 puppies.

Getting Lilly to eat as she gets further along has been tricky as she gets pickier ... at first, she liked Beaver tail (of all things!) and green beef tripe. (She began to turn her nose up at the usual blend we get through a coop ... they eat raw for the most part ... so we started ordering a variety of things through my pet carnivore.) 

Lately it seems chicken gizzards are always a winner, but if we add things like chicken hearts, chicken livers, eggs, she likes that, too. And if we try something as simple as the Farmina puppy kibble, well, you've never seen a nose go up into the air faster! We've even tried Lamb Pancreas (not a winner with Lilly) and ground duck (that was a good one on Lilly's list but, unfortunately, Sebastian our senior pug found his way into the puppy room and gobbled it up. You snooze, you lose, when you live with a grumble of pugs!)

Lilly is definitely more uncomfortable as we get closer to the projected whelp date (anywhere from now, to June 2, but we are thinking this weekend. We have a c-section scheduled for Saturday but if the progesterone is not at the right place, we'll delay ... which means a holiday weekend of course ... so we might be looking at a free whelp). We have to take her temperature 4 times a day, which is not her favorite thing but she's really quite cooperative. 

She sleeps with us so we can keep close tabs on her. There have been a couple of restless nights ... hormones and all ... but she's a pretty good sleeper otherwise. One night, Jeff woke up and Lilly's face was right in his face and she was SNORING away. 

We've spent a week+ now getting the puppy room ready, restocking supplies (more oral cal B, feeding tubes, alcohol wipes, new batteries for thermometer), setting up the new whelping box, making sure the incubator, heating pads, oxygenator etc. all work, putting new batteries in the nasal sucker and sterilizing suction bulbs, blankets, cloths and such. Lilly spends most of her day in this room so she'll be stress free and away from the other dogs. We have an adaptil calm diffuser plugged in and she has a adaptil collar to give her ultimate calm.

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We've made the liver water and formula for puppies (in case we need to tube feed) which we froze in an icecube tray to have ready on hand, and we made a batch of mother's pudding which is a delicious concoction using vanilla pudding and other goodies to add calcium for Lilly after the puppies are born. 

And, of course, we got the dark malt beer .... why? well, it's a great way to help Lilly produce milk after the pups are born. Unlike Fenugreek, a supplement sometimes used, dark malt beer works within 24 hours and it is easy to give and good for the girls in many ways. Galactagog is the magic ingredient. We pour the beer over baked chicken and the mama's gobble it up. Galactogog sounds like a sci fi movie starring pugs, eh? ​

We are headed to the vet today for a final x-ray to see how the pups are positioned...measure heads and such to help with a free whelp "in case" (since it will be a holiday weekend and all). We have a back-up c-section scheduled on Tuesday after Memorial weekend with anotheraMAZing vet (our regular vet's schedule was already full when we thought to add another back-up appointment)., and we verified that a repro vet will actually be open on Monday/Memorial day until noon ... "in case".  We've done pretty much everything possible ahead of time, so now we wait. And pray.