The Urban Acre Betties: Video:Ginger's Goldendoodles are Here!

So what's more "Urban Acre" than a litter of pups? We have had many questions regarding the arrival of Ginger's puppies on her scheduled due date yesterday! "How did you know what to do? How did you prepare? What was it like? How did the kid's react? How did Ginger respond?" A short recap; she had 4 females and 2 males and all puppies were delivered safely over a 4 hour time span. Here is our story with a video of the birth at the end.

F2B Goldendoodles

Dana started preparing for the birth about two weeks prior to the due date. Dogs are only pregnant for 63 days, and Ginger being a first time mom with a smaller litter didn't show until day 48. At this time Dana took Ginger for a maternity groom in which they shaved her belly and behind, making the delivery process easier to deal with and the pups don't get a mouth full of hair when trying to nurse. Goldendoodles are super fluffy with a lot of non-shedding hair and need regular grooming anyway.

Next, it was off to buy a plastic kiddie swimming pool for Ginger to start nesting in and eventually whelp her puppies in. There were 2 sizes to choose from and for a larger breed (Ginger is 50 lbs) Dana bought the larger pool (and a huge shout-out to ACE Hardware for carrying a kid's swimming pool in the month of January in 30 degree temps). Dana placed the "whelping box" in her master bathroom where she could be close in the middle of the night.

Finally, she stocked up on rubbing alcohol, two medical clamps (hemostats), dental floss if hemostats are not available, scissors, nasal aspirator, newspaper, and absorbent puppy training pads. She gave the pool a nice disinfecting bath about 2 days before Ginger's due date, wiping it down with bleach cleaner and then she put a mattress cover over it. At this time she also disinfected her clamps and scissors in the rubbing alcohol and laid them aside.

If you have a dog about to give birth they will start hiding in strange places and panting heavily. When letting Ginger outside she started digging a hole. Once this behavior starts, do no let them out of your site or you may have puppies on your sofa, bed or carpeting! OR worse yet, outside on a rainy muddy night!

So, for the rest of the story you can tune into our video...WARNING it shows a live puppy birth graphically and may not be appropriate for younger kids. Although educationally there is nothing like it! This whole experience has given the kids so much knowledge and understanding of reproductive health and is tying in nicely with biology and anatomy this year.

WARNING: GRAPHIC but CUTE!