German Shepherd Puppies: Saving them All

Hello German Shepherd lovers;

This is a blog to help some of you in your quest to “save them all”.  First of all, we as breeders have to live with the hard fact that we can’t.  But we always will try our best.  I have saved puppies by giving mouth to muzzle (breathing gently into the mouth to expand their lungs), we have sutured ruptured umbilicals with dental floss where mom chewed too close, I have spent hours with a heating pad and blow dryer to save rigid puppies born outside in the freezing cold, I have verbally encouraged fading German Shepherd puppies, rubbed and massaged, been heartbroken when they die.

I just lost all five in a litter of five because I could not get oxytocin dispensed to me by my new vet.  I spent hours at emergency and then aborted the dead puppy from the canal myself when the attending vet was too nervous about what my dog might do if she did it.

Look, very few people understand what we breeders do, lovingly cleaning our nurseries and dogs after whelping, stressing for days to make sure puppies make it past “fading puppy sydrome”, putting each pup on the nipple.  The greatest joy I get from this all is hearing from my clients about some amazing story of how our dogs served them or protected them.  I have some wonderful stories to share.  I plan to write some tips for you hobby breeders to help “save them all” in the near future.  Please watch on the blog and follow the new articles and videos posted to (click here) my K9-U.

We German Shepherd breeders have to live with the fact that we can’t save them all, but we can do what we do the best we can.