Blue, Popeye and Lili

So our next three dogs that I have to blog about are Blue, Popeye and Lili. Now I will have to backtrack a bit. If you recall Lulu and Cooter from my previous posts, you will remember that they are female and male. Well despite being together in the same area for like 2 years they failed to get pregnant. People told us that we might have to place a book or step for Cooter to be able to reach Lulu. Well we figured it it happened it would happen. Once we moved down to Brownsville, I am not sure whether it was the country air or if Cooter just had more room, but low and behold Miss Lulu was pregnant.

Well I researched and researched many a website, and educated myself in all things Basset. Towards the end of her pregnancy Lulu was huge, poor baby her tummy would drag on the floor. We had no idea when she was going to go into labor. One of our dear friends,Lili, just so happened to be available to sit with LuLu during the day. She had some prior experience with birthing pups(pugs that is). I really dont know what we would have done without her, to this day we thank her.

The last week of her pregnancy, Lu would flop over on her side and you could see these lumps moving inside her, it was creepy because it reminded me of aliens or something. We could only guess how many babies she had in her. Lili called me one afternoon with the news that Lu's water had broken. Off I went, once home we waited and waited and waited, Lili decided to go home and change and get something to eat and them come back. I told her please hurry back becasue I have like no experience with this stuff, not to mention I am so queasy around blood.

Just to mention we had already prepared a spot for her to have the pups, I had gloves, and a heating pad all ready to go. Well as luck would have it(at least my luck), as soon as lili left i noticed Lulu licking and saw a small blobish looking thing poking out of her ,for lack of a better term, birth canal. Frantically I phoned my brother(Biology Grad) and told him to get to my house ASAP. So Lulu looked panicky, she didnt know what to do she kept looking at me like what's going on. The worst part of it is that she kept trying to sit down and I was so scared she was going to smoosh this lil one.

I decided I was going to have to react or this was all going to go bad fast. I threw on my surgical non powdered latex gloves and helped her wedged her baby out. Granted I had to be VERY careful, and if possible I would so recommend having a Vet to do this. Once Lulu pushed the lil one out, she kind of nudged it with her nose and kind of looked at me so I decided I would need to tear open the sac so that this baby could breathe(the only reason I knew to do this was because of all my research, Thank God for the internet). Once I had accomplished this Lulu started licking the pup and she started responding, but then Lu wasnt doing anything about the umbilical cord, so here I go again, so I took my sterilized scissors and proceeded to cut, this was so not working that freakin umbilical cord is like some sinewy texture, I finally had to use a knife to cut it. Finally, 40 minutes later pup #1 was born, she was a girl. Lili, my brother Phil and my husband finally got home to assist, I let out a big sigh of relief. With so many hands to help, I was able to convince our dear friend, and Godfather to Cooter and Lulu, Lupe that is was not necessary for him to drive 5 hours to assist.

The next pup came like 10 mintues later, same thing we had to cut the sac and umbilical cord as well, this pup was a boy and a lemon color. His tail was also turned at a right angle, I thought it was broken butit turns out it's just a small defect, we think it just makes him special, this lil pup is now called Blue. Lulu had two more pups and then nothing for like 4 hours, at midnight she gave birth to four more pups, by this time Lulu had gotten the hang of it, so we just had to watch the others while she was busy we these ones. We had to move her nto our closet,(this turned out to be the nursery for like the next 2 months). She had a total of 13 puppies inside her, unfortunatley 2 were still born and 1 passed away a lil after the first 24 hours.

We found good healthy home for the most of the pups we decided to stay with three of them. That is how we got Blue, Popeye and Lili.

Pictured above is Blue and Popeye all growed up

• Blue is the one who was born with the turned tail.

• Popeye got his name becasue he was the strongest pup, and the first to do everything
  
• Lili originally was given to my Mother and Father in law, but when they moved down to Brownsville from San Antonio we took over Lili becasue we had more yard space for her.

The whole experience of birthing those puppies just goes to prove that you never know what you are capable of until you are put into these kind of situations. "I was up to my elbows in afterbirth"...that is my quote that Imost remember saying or thinking not quite sure which, that night.

Oh and that is probably the last time I breed a dog, it is a whole lot to put not only your momma dog through , but yourself if you are going to be serious about taking good care of her and the pups,a dnthen to find good homes, is another hurdle. So I strongly advise to seriously think not only twice about it, but like a hundred times about it.

I am now a firm believer in spaying and nuetering your dogs and cats.

xoxox, jen

if anyone has any questions regarding the whelping process and caringof the pups ie.. shots etc, feel free to email me. I am by no means an expert but I do know how much other's experiences aided me.

You can see Blue's tail here, he is the one in the far left of the pic.