Jeanie' story
This is Jeanie’s 3rd and final litter, she will be 5 years old on April 8, 2022.
For her last litter, we decided to breed her to Manny who complements her well conformation and temperament wise.
We ultrasounded her at around 5 weeks at the beginning of January and saw 6-8 babies. Just to be on the safe side, we also checked her progesterone and it was considerably below the levels expected halfway through gestation. Therefore, we put her on a daily progesterone supplement as without it, she would have reabsorbed the fetuses.There is no explanation why this drop in progesterone levels occurred as Jeanie did not have any problems during her previous pregnancies.
As always when an expecting mom is on progesterone supplement, supplementing is stopped 2 days prior to the expected due date as the progesterone will inhibit going into labor.
Our longtime Swissy friends Mary Beth Usery and Jessica Kalupa of Suma Kennels who live in nearby Marshfield kindly offered to whelp the litter, Jess already whelped Jeanie's other 2 litters.
Jeanie started to show signs of labor on February 3 in the morning, the first puppy arrived at 1.30 PM, 7 were born by 6.30 PM and the last one at 4.45AM the following day, all males. Sadly, the respiratory system of puppy #8 was too compromised and it passed shortly after birth.
Jeanie always has been an attentive and careful mother with plenty of milk. Therefore, we don’t know what happened this time. On February 6, she laid on a puppy and another puppy just got weaker and despite every possible effort by Mary Beth and Jess to get it going again, it died after a few hours.The remaining 5 puppies just did not seem thrive. They were lively and latched onto Jeanie’s giant nipples but did not seem to get full.
So Mary Beth and Jess decided to give the puppies to a Shorthair mom who only had 3 puppies that were born a few days prior to Jeanie’s. And lo and behold, Gidget accepted the 5 Swissys immediately and they started to put on weight within the first 24 hours.
It saddened us that we had to take the puppies away from Jeanie but there obviously was something wrong with her milk development this time around. As with the low progesterone level midway through her pregnancy, we don’t know what caused both these deficiencies. We were very fortunate that Gidget accepted the puppies instantly and continues to have enough milk for her own 3 and the 5 Swissy puppies.
The puppies will grow up at Suma Kennels and we will start to release them starting March 31, 2022.
