Knowing when a female has ovulated really makes life easier, so progesterone tests are amazing to determine the time of mating and the due date. Sixty-three days from ovulation plus or mins a day, so Siska was due on the 3rd, 4th or 5th ... and of course she kept us waiting till the afternoon of the 5th.
Now I'm not a big breeder, we are only on "M" and my first litter was born in January 1996, but I do have experience of bitches who are going to whelp. No doubt they vary, but I've never had a bitch start her contractions on the sofa without giving me much warning before. Ok she'd done a bit of digging, she'd thrown up the egg she ate and she'd done a bit of panting, but experience told me to expect more. I was wrong!
Siska's waters broke at 2.50pm and young Jet took an hour to make his dramatic appearance. The bag burst in the canal and initially his muzzle only was poking out of the vulva. I'd read about "feather" and just got on with it, tickling the inside of the vulva encouraged her to give a huge push and with a loud scream he came part way out. One front leg was still tucked behind him in the vulva, one more push and a louder scream from Siska and baby Jet, Blanik's first ever sable arrived in the world at 3.50pm. Siska then informed me that she knew what to do and Jet was feeding before we'd had time to think about it.
I had decided that the first female sable would be called Amber, and Amber arrived at 4.45pm. Her arrival was much less dramatic as she was a tad smaller and still in her bag. She too was on the move very quickly and feeding. OMG two sables, I had my sable female.
Little Mica arrived at 5.35pm, again not as big as Jet and in his bag so a very easy birth with Siska in full charge. He was the liveliest at birth and he initially gave me no reason to question that there could be issues. I do recall that he was not as quick to feed and the bigger two seemed to be pushing him out, but some are like that and with only the three of them there was plenty of choice. The sadness that followed was totally unexpected, but I know full well that a percentage of puppies die within the first 48 hrs, shit happens, but it's heartbreaking when it happens to you. By 4am I already knew something wasn't right with Mica, but we tried, I swear we tried everything we could.
This morning Steve buried Mica with Winnie and Kaiah's twins, he was just too small to be buried alone. We won't forget him, not ever, and I can't help but wonder who he could have been?
Baby Opal arrived at 6.35pm, yes another sable but with typical Blanik baby white toes. She was the smallest of the four weighing less than a pound. She was a slow started, and I had to help rub her down to get her going. She really has made up for it now though! I'm scared to make any commitments, but she kind of looks like a L/C. She has the slightly longer face and a rounder muzzle .. but we'll see!
Siska is besotted with her babies, I often catch her just looking at them, mind you I get it as I do that myself.
