Ch. Hope Springs Eternal ROM x Ch. Action Captain America ROM

Introducing the white Mommy Hope

and brindle and white daddy Shayne. You can see more of him at the Action Bull Terrier site.

My second litter was whelped July 20th, 2009. Hope was Huge and very excited about showing off her belly to everyone. She became quite happy toward the end of her pregnancy and seemed to be looking forward to having her babies. Here is Hope in labor about 2 hours before she gave birth to pup #1). Marion predicted that she would have an easy birth and pop 'em out. I asked her why she thought that and she said it was just a hunch. Well, lucky for all of us, she was right! The birth itself pretty much went like clockwork.

All six babies were born between 4 and 9am. Four girls and two boys just like her last litter. This time we got 2 brindle and white girls, a black brindle and white girl, an all white girl, a white boy with black eye smudge and a black brindle and white boy. Hope, and therefore the humans attending her, had an easy time. Pam Rys, who has had bull terriers for a long, long time had never seen puppies being born. So she was on-call and came over in the wee hours to see the last 4 born.

Marion was there, of course, but BJ Ralston and I were trying to manage the litter as best we could by ourselves. I was trying to get the hang of this; BJ has more experience. But of course, whenever there was a question we would call upon Marion who with barely a glance would diagnose what was needed. It could be something simple....like she would tell us to take Hope out for a pee. And we would think, what does that have to do with anything, and sure enough right after she would pee we would get some more contractions. Or some time would go by and there would seemingly be no progression and Marion would stick her finger "up there" and say "Oh give it about 10 minutes and BAM damn if things didnt happen exactly 10 minutes later LOL. I equate it to my cake decorating and food experience (which you can see on my food blog). People will say things like "I cant believe you made that cake! It is so beautiful!" and Im thinking to myself, "This is what I do for a living, I better be able to make cakes that look this good!" LOL. Its the same with Marion. She's been doing this for almost 40 years so of course she knows how to whelp a dog!

Here is a pic of Pup #1 right after birth, a brindle and white girl with a thin white stripe down the center of her face.

She also has a "moustache"! I asked Franne Berez if any of the daddy's side of the family had that marking (as I couldnt think of any Winsor dogs that did). Guess what? It comes from her daddy and grand-dad. Here is her 'stache. She is leaning on her pure white (yellow) sister - more on her below.

Since this girl came out yellow from poop, I started calling her "Saffron".

Here is the white boy with black eye and brindle girl with broad white blaze.

Here is Pam Rys holding the two brindle girls. I know the pups are blurry but I wanted to get a pic of Pam in there!

Here is a wet pic of the black brindle bitch with the white face. The black Just reaches her eyes on both sides.

And here is her other side. She is held by Evie Chouinard, another friend who helped at the whelping.

We had an all-female crackerjack team. Here is BJ arriving with her daughter Bristol at about 3:00AMBristol came prepared with mask, gloves and a notebook to take detailed notes of who came out first, noted the time of birth, color, markings, sex and whether we got an afterbirth with the puppy. You Have to make sure you get all the afterbirths out; this time around once the last pup came out there were still 3 afterbirths int here! It took a few hours, but them came out with the help of a "clean-out" shot of oxytocin. NO I am not going to show you a pic of an afterbirth. I would if I had one, but I dont LOL. Consider yourself lucky. Hope slurped them up like candy.

Hope nursing her babies! Left to right: both brindle girls, then "Saffron:, then Cappy the black brindle boy, then black brindle girl and lastly my white male.

In the photo below we have top to bottom: yellow Saffron kind of hiding underneath, brindle girl getting a Big suck, black brindle boy Cappy, our mustache girl and the white boy with black eye. Cappy got his name because he has that little beanie style cap on his head and its short for Captain, an homage to his daddy. His AKC name will be Legacy Winsor This Is Your Captain Speaking.
And here is dear, sweet Hope having a well earned nap after the last came out.
Anyway, Day 1 went well with everyone, Hope and babies were thriving. Day 2 I was doing the day shift and the little white boy seemed very quiet. I was very careful all day long, making sure no one got squished. Instinctually I kept thinking he was different and mentioned to Marion a few times that I thought so...but I never did raise the alarm because nothing dramatic enough hit me over the head. Long story short, by the end of the day we had lost him. Looking back at Day 1 he had come out a bit blue, but this is not that unusual with bullies and he breathed right away after a vigorous shake down and some pinches (again not unusual for BT births). He also bled a bit when his cord was cut but again, this is not a huge red flag. He seemed to roll onto his back a lot and then not be able to right himself. So much so that we nicknamed him turtle. Did this mean anything? We chose not to do a autopsy, so we will never know for sure. There might have been something wrong with him and he might never have thrived. Or he might have become chilled or was under-nourished. It's almost too much to think about. After all, Hope didnt go looking for this. We acted as gods and made this happen and are responsible for it all, the good and the bad. And in this game the bad can mean death. I dont want to end on such a low note. It is just the facts. I am writing this a week and a half later and ALL are doing very very well. More pics to come.