Cruz is doing great!

Cruz is doing wonderfully well.  A little slower to get up than usual but other than that, she's great!  Her waist line pre-breeding was 28 inches.  I measured her a couple of days ago and she's now sitting at 32 inches!  There's an old wives tale that states you can tell how many puppies they are having by how many inches they increase.  So if I measure her a few days ahead of her whelping date, that should give us a rough idea.  But I think the better thing to do is an x-ray to get a better idea!  They are not 100% correct all the time but they give you a good general idea.  I don't do that because I'm impatient and want to know how many pups she is having as soon as possible!  I do it for the health of the Mom.  If I know there are 8 pups in there and she has given birth to six but nothing has progressed for many hours, I know there might be a pup stuck.  That can be life threatening to Mom and the remaining pups.  I need to get the vet here right away!  

But the x-ray can be wrong at times.  I've had the x-ray tell me 8 pups and there was 10!  2 pups were hiding behind the others!  So sometimes I get x-rays and sometimes I don't.  It's a judgement call I make shortly before whelping.  Will I do it this time?  Who knows!  You will all have to wait and see!

TTFN