The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away

It's been such a long few days, and I'm thoroughly exhausted.

I knew that bringing a puppy into the house would create disorder for a bit, but I prepared myself for that. There's housebreaking, and constant supervision, training, and socializing to be done. It's a season, and a relatively short one, at that.

Last Friday, Verne and I traveled 6 hours away to get our puppy. We spent the night, and returned home Saturday evening. The puppy was re-introduced to the older dogs (they all came from the same breeder), and everything seemed fine.

Sunday, Violet (the lab) nearly drove me insane. She paced all day long, and cried, and clawed at the walls in the living room, and hid under beds and dug at the carpet. I had no clue why she was so upset.

Monday morning, during our walk, I noticed that Violet was dripping a slimy green substance from her back end. When we got home and I was washing her off, I was puzzled to see the discharge was coming from her vulva, and not her rectum. Oh no! I feared she had a very bad urinary tract infection. We called the vet, but they weren't seeing anyone because it was a holiday. Later in the evening I contacted our breeder to determine if Violet was prone to infections, and was assured that no, she had never had one before. As I was describing her behavior the previous day, and the discharge she was experiencing, a light bulb went off with the breeder. You see, they had tried to breed Violet several times and it never took. They tried one last time at the end of April, assumed it hadn't taken again, and gave her to us when I inquired after a dog that would be good with children and an excellent walking companion for me. Only, this time the breeding did take.

Verne quickly built a whelping box, and I set up camp beside Violet in the laundry room. I hardly slept as she paced the floor, was in and out of the box, and tried to climb on top of me where I lay on my cot. Tuesday morning, my friend Darlene stopped by to check on Violet's progress and suggested we take her to the vet as it didn't appear that labor was progressing as it should, and the green discharge was a bad sign that the placenta(s) had already broken down.

The vet administered two slow doses of oxytocin to Violet, hoping to enhance her labor, but the puppy never moved. At last, he performed a c-section on Violet, and then we had her spayed at the same time. The puppy had already been dead. She had to spend the night, and didn't come home until this evening.

Poor Violet. A new home, labor, a c-section and hysterectomy, and a dead puppy. She shook tremendously when we brought her home, and is carrying a stuffed dog around like it's her own pup. No fetch and no walks for 10 days. Ugh!