This girl is a trooper. She manages to handle all the situations that comes her way. Whelping isn’t her strong suit which is sad for she carries great genes and is an awesome girl. After having her checked out with a vet specialist last January after a tough delivery he informed us that she should be fine for another breeding. That the problem could have been that it was her first whelping. We gave her a break and then bred her with Shadow in November of 2019. I have been working closely with Dr. Card in Missoula with this litter. We did an AI and as we got closer to whelping decided to do a C-Section. With bad weather and the problems before with her I decided to take that route. It was a good decision for when they did the C-Section Dr. Card said she would have had problems giving a natural birth for her uterus is elongated with thin walls. We got to watch the surgery through a window which was amazing to see. An experience I will never forget. They had 4 technicians working on the pups as she extracted them. They worked very quickly and it was intense. Not one moment was spared as they brought each puppy breathing on their own. Two of the puppies didn’t survive even though they worked on them for 45 minutes with breathing machines and 2 vet techs working on them. I asked Dr. Card why this happens for we have had the same happen here with normal deliveries. She explained that sometimes the placentas get separated before birth and they don’t have enough energy to come out of the birthing trauma. She said that 2 of them had been separated. We brought home 8 healthy puppies because of this wonderful staff. Things went very well that first week and Cassiopeia came out of surgery very well. At day 5 she went off her food and began vomiting. Took them in for dew claws that next day and had Cassiopeia checked out as well. I put her on Mother’s Pudding with some ice cream, chicken rice soup I made for her and anything else I could get her to eat. She mostly liked the dairy products. On Day 7 with the permission from the vet I took her off the antibiotics and no more vomiting. At that point the puppies got diarrhea and some wouldn’t eat. With some meds, Pedylite, and Nutra-Stat we managed to work through it all. One thing that has become a miracle drug for me is the Nutra Stat. I use it during whelping, when mom is down and out, a drop to puppies not feeling up to par, and anytime I feel one of the dogs isn’t feeling well. It can be used with cats, kitttens, puppies, and dogs. It is a high energy gel packed with lots of good vitamins. A must to keep on hand if you have pets. With the puppies being 10 days old we still have a lot of work ahead of us. Breeding isn’t for the faint-hearted for sure. Generally with every whelping during that first week I think about never breeding again. But here I am still at it.