In this photo from Yesterday afternoon, you can see that Stoker is starting to relax into her maternal duties. She didn't want to lay flat on her side for the first 36 hours, so the pups were only able to get easy access to a few nipples at a time. Now she is laying on her side and using the box railing as a head rest.
After Jan left for work yesterday, all was fine until poor Stoker started having diarrhea. The first bout didn't look too bad, but the second time I let her out I decided a visit to the vet to have her checked was in order. She had been trembling a bit and panting - just really agaitated. Her tummy also sounded like a volcano about to erupt and it was making her anxious with the pups too. A quick trip to the vet found a healthy mom who had probably just ingested too much rich stuff over the last day. They gave her some sub-Q fluids to make sure she did not get dehydrated and sent her home with instructions to feed her small amounts of a bland diet. She's been getting chicken breast and boiled potato in increasing quantities since then and it seems to suit her just fine.
Jan slept in the whelping room last night and after a brief trip into work in the evening with a splitting headache, I came home, ate dinner and slept for 11 hours straight. I'm feeling MUCH better this morning.
After Jan has had his coffee and we have time to wake up a bit, we'll start the morning routine of putting a fresh rug in the whelping box, weighing the pups and just generally freshening things up. Maybe I'll take some photos of the routine and post them later, along with a photo of Reef.
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