A lot of people believe that raising dogs is a piece of cake! I mean seriously, how hard can it be? You get a boy dog and a girl dog, throw them out in the yard together and voila’ two months later girls dog has this nice big litter, which she raises on her own. Then dog breeder sells all the puppies and makes a bunch of money!

Well, I’m here to share a little of the harsh reality with you.

On Thursday, Reba and Faith decided to do the Allie/Jules dance; let’s have our babies together!

You always hope and assume everything will go smoothly. but the reality is, it doesn’t always. And you know me, (if you’ve followed the blog for any length of time) I’m kind of an open book and share the good and the not so good things with you all.

Sadly, it was one of those hard days, with a lot of loss.

We knew Reba had two puppies inside because of the x-ray she had done at the internist a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately, the first puppy she delivered was stillborn. I kind of suspected that’s what would happen. But after several hours of no more contractions, I started to get a little concerned. I asked my vet if the second puppy could have been reabsorbed by her body a couple weeks prior when she’d had the medical emergency. She assured me that it was too developed and might possibly mummify inside her, but she would still deliver it. And if she didn’t, she would need a C-section.

In the meantime, Faith had started her delivery. I had suspected she had five to six puppies by the size of her girth. Unfortunately, for some reason the first pup was delivered but never took a breath, despite my efforts to help. But when the second pup came and was also deceased (with signs that that its demise wasn’t recent), I started to get a sick feeling in my stomach. What was going on?! Am I going to end up with a whole litter of dead puppies?!

Thankfully, number three arrived; healthy, strong and vigorous. I was starting to relax a bit.

Then sadly, she had another dead puppy. Why this happens, I don’t know. Without a necropsy, which might not even be conclusive, we might never know.

So at this point, it’s late evening and we have Reba with one deceased puppy, and Faith with three dead ones and one living pup. *sigh

At that point, I was praying that Reba would have a live puppy still to be delivered, but as the hours went by, hoped faded a bit. I hated to think of her with nothing to nurture while her sister-dog had at least one puppy to care for. 🙁

Finally, just before nine ‘o clock Reba started digging, panting and showing signs of imminent labor. And then it came, a live, wiggly, healthy puppy; an answered prayer in my book!

Not long after Faith delivered another beautiful, fat puppy.

Was she done now? No, there was one more puppy to be delivered. Another beauty, but unfortunately, to a mother who tends to be a bit vigorous chewing umbilical cords. She was able to do damage beyond repair before I had a chance to save the little tyke. And puppy later died because of her mother’s unintentionally afflicted injuries.

I don’t share this sadness looking for sympathy or to be a drama queen either. I share so you understand that things don’t always go as planned when we’re dealing with living, breathing creatures. This is a reality of life. There are mountains and valleys along the way. We had a lot of losses that day. But I’m very thankful for the three beauties we do have. ❤️