Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Welcoming Dee's New Puppies

SSD Dee gave birth to her puppies yesterday! We're very happy to welcome these new pups into our program!

We knew that Dee was due to give birth in the beginning of May, so when we found that she had gone into labor in the morning on May 2, our whelping team was ready. At 2:13 p.m., Dee gave birth to her first puppy, a large, black male that weighed 19 ounces. Because this puppy was so big, she had some difficulty delivering him, but our whelping team was right there to help her. Her second puppy was born easily at 2:32 p.m. - a slightly smaller black female.

Anytime one of our dogs give birth, we always have the vets at Palmyra Animal Clinic on call, just in case. Our first priority is to make sure that the mother and puppies are safe and healthy. Dee was having a difficult time delivering her third puppy, and we stayed in close contact with the vet. We had Dee walk around a little bit and gave her massages and nutrients to keep her energy up. One puppy may sometimes take several hours to be born, but after a few hours, we decided that it would be best to take Dee to the vet. We carefully loaded her and her two puppies into the car and drove them to the Palmyra Animal Clinic.

The vets took wonderful care of Dee and her puppies. Dr. Clements and Dr. Hahn performed an emergency c-section and delivered four more puppies - two yellow females, one black male and one black female.

Sadly, one of the yellow females was stillborn. She will be named and buried in a special area at the home of one of our volunteers. We were thankful to leave the vet with five large, healthy puppies and a healthy Dee. Dee went home on IV fluids to make sure she stays hydrated after her surgery, but she and her puppies are doing fine.

Thank you so much to our whelping team, Dee's breeder caretakers and the wonderful vets at Palmyra Animal Clinic!

We will be announcing the names of these American Heroes puppies soon. There's still time if you'd like to suggest a few more names!

We're looking forward to watching these big puppies grow and learn to be service dogs.

6 comments:

  1. Congratulations Dee and the team for doing such a great job!!! Welcome, little ones!

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  2. Every litter is an adventure and it's always sad when you lose any of them.

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  3. Congratulations Dee & To everyone at Susquehanna Service dogs on your new litter of puppies.All 5 of them are so precious.

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  4. Congrats Dee and SSD! Can't wait to hug these puppies!

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  5. Yay, Dee!!! You are a wonderful Mommy!

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  6. What a great job everyone did.....So close to Mothers Day Dee had to do the hardest thing ever have a puppy not survive. Prayers for Dee and all the puppies. Thank you for the great team that helped her thru this hard delivery. Bryce Bashore, Amy Anderson

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