For those of you who were watching the live stream last night and saw Ruth escape the whelping box, first let me assure you that Ruth and pups are doing well this morning. I will try to share with you the events leading up to her discomfort last night.

Pups had not been gaining as was optimal, so we upped Ruth’s meals and increased their frequency to improve her milk production.  We also started supplementing the smaller puppies to keep them from falling behind their bigger siblings.   We’ve been walking Ruth frequently to help with the output from all those meals.  She was walked last night at roughly 11pm.

Sometime after that she needed to go out, and eventually escaped the puppy pen.  She was unable to return to the puppies.  Thankfully friends and puppy midwives made some phone calls and I was eventually roused.  Ruth was returned to her pen, the pups were fished out from under the bedding and all is well.  And, as I was finishing up giving the last of the pups a little extra nighttime snack, the Lawrence County sheriff’s department showed up to do a “wellness check”.

Finally, we’ve made some changes here so hopefully there will not be a rerun of last night’s debacle.  In the rearing of puppies things are always evolving, and we are constantly adjusting our care and changing management strategies to provide the best possible environment for our girl and her pups.