Repeat Breeding goes Hay-Wire - Page 3

a friend of mine told me she had a bitch who was a couple weeks pregnant, she asked the vet if it was ok to give the bitch heartgard and he said it was ok. within a couple of days of giving the bitch heartgard the bitch miscarried. The bitch was bred her next heat and produced a large healthy litter. My friend thinks that it was without a doubt the heartgard that made her bitch abort the first litter.

Was there any sign of infection at bite sites on the pregnant female. That would prove an excellent conduit for a systemix infection that, given the thickness of a GSD coat, may have gone undetected at the time. The wound could have sealed up quickly, effectively locking the infection agents inside. That's all I can think of. I've given Heartguard up till two weeks before partruition many times with no ill effects on the mother or the resulting litters. whelp Watch. Sorry I cannot discuss this further tonight. I'm on

Heart gaurd was given as normal, supposeably safe. no antibiotics after dog fight. She limped on her front leg for a day but after that was fine. I used antiseptic on all the wounds I could easily locate and hydrogen peroxide on those I couldn't, also bathed her after wards. No wounds required stitches as she quickly came out on top. Mike

Mike, I use Heartguard, and have for years with no bad effects on pregnant females and their puppies. This is a sad and absolute mystery to me why this happened to your girl, as she did well before. Just a guess on my part, but I think I side with some of the other posters as this was possibly caused by a virus. I think that a brown recluse bite would have shown itself, as I have seen this twice on my dogs. A sad mystery, I must say. Bob-O

Mike, Based on what you say, I think that there is a high likelihood that it is none of the above. If there was an infection, or if there was some sort of environmental exposure, or if there was some sort of toxic bite (and brown recluses are not found in your area), the likelihood is very great that ALL the pups would have been affected. I think there is a chance that several of the pups, for whatever reason, were in the process of being reabsorbed and may have been conceived earlier than others (sperm can remain viable a long time depending on circumstances). I think there may be something that went wrong with this females' hormonal regulation. Being stressed with another female around and a fight, might have contributed, might not have. If you would have frozen the pups and had your vet send one or more dead pups to CSU they could have done a necropsy and ruled out infection, toxins etc. There is also a chance that something was wrong with the germ cells in either parent dog, even if the prior litter turned out healthy. The pup that had underdeveloped lungs may have been conceived late and was born too early. Again, the fact that there are three healthy pups does not suggest anything except something going on developmentally and likely internally based and not caused by something administered. By the way, Heartgard has been well studied for its' effect on pregnant females and it has not been demonstrated to be a mutagen or a teratogen in canines.

Infection is the most likely cause, infections in a pregnant bitch can cause the kinds of problems you describe. And I've seen many cases where a bitch had a healthy strong litter, then had a disaster like you describe, and then had healthy litters again.

Mike, I wish I had some kind of answer for you, But I don't in fact I can offer what I expeirienced and the lack of information we gained from it... We had a bitch we bred to this male, All female pups were fine, But 2 males were born dead and the other died at 5 wks old, he was fine when I fed, bouncing around as puppies do, But smelled the mush and walked off, I grabbed him up right then, Temped him no temp, eyes were clear, lungs were clear, nose is clear, but had diahrhea, started giving kaopectate, then vomiting, gave anti nauseal, vomit some more, gave more anti nauseal, gave Nutri-Cal, gave electrolytes, more vomiting, more antinauseal, gave tylan 200 injection, more electrolytes, less than 5 hours after I picked him up he died in my arms, I was devistated, I have never seen a pup go downhill that fast, we already had it set up to go to the vet, so I took him in and took a sister in as well, we pulled blood on her, did a parvo test on him, and on her, all blood was good, parvo was neg. Vet was Stumped, we sent the pup to the university, there they tested, heart,liver,lung,kidney,lower int. upper int., brain,gall, muscle, thyroid, only thing they found was low grade ecoli count, which was determined POST mortem and natural. Basically we came up Zero's !! Vet is still stumped on this one, as is the university, while all this was happening with this pup I wrote down everything I had done and at what times, The vet said with this care no matter what was going on this pup should not have died in this time frame. No allergies were determined to be present. No bites were found, no NOTHING. I always assumed RH factor type of thing, All males were Gone, All females perfectly healthy still, needless to say I have not taken that bitch back to that male, However I had bred her daughter to the male and had 9 puppies 5 males 4 females all healthy still today, they are all over a year old now. I guess some things just are what they are, and it's cruel and victimizing, Enjoy the babies you have and I hope you never have to go through this again, Let us know if you ever do come up with anything.

Thank you everyone for your responses they are greatly apperciated. Guess I will never actually know what happened. Though it was a tradgedy some good came out of it. My 14 year old daughter had always considered helping out with the dogs as a chore. After helping out with the birth of the healthy litter and the other. After careing for the pup that died at 3 days, day and night and holding the pup that lasted 2 weeks in her arms as it was euthanized, she has decided she wants to be become a Vet Tech, at least to start with. Prior to all this, she would play with the pups from other litters, but never seemed to want to do much of anything else. Now, cleans kennels without being asked, calls me at work to ask what food to feed the pups that are weaning and how to mix it up, she is takeing a great interest in the whole thing. When she comes home from school she immediately checks on all the pups individually and has started nick nameing them and can tell me who is who and what sex they are, this includes the litter of 9. She also researched Vet Tech schools, found a certified vet tech program that also gives her a 2 year degree and gave me reasons why this school is better than others. She also wants me to talk to my Vet about letting her help out around there, un-paid, so she can learn more. So out of tradgedy has come something good, thanks everyone for your responses. Mike