Whew. Take a deep breath. It has been a WILD 5 days.

A few weeks ago I built and delivered a whelping box to Tammie for Sweet Susie. A week later, I delivered Susie herself to Tammie. Tammie called me back to tell me that she had a "Hippo" living at her house. Susie did get very big and declared that she was going to have a large litter. Tammie also said that I don't talk enough about Susie because she is wonderful. Well of course I agree! Susie is wonderful. She is super sweet and calm and confident. She loves everybody and she has become a great mom. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Yep, last week Susie had her babies. Tammie called me Wednesday, May 9th about 5:45p and said Susie is restless and thinks she needs to poop. Yea, right! Tammie took her up to Bowdon Animal Clinic. We had already told them that Sue was going to have a large litter and we had lots of help. We had nine people in attendance. It wasn't enough! Dr. Racelis cut into her belly and said, "Oh my." Then he made the incision larger. In the end, he had to dedicate a person to holding her uterus on her belly so it wouldn't fall off! Each four foot uteran horn held SIX puppies. To make matters worse, Susie didn't want to stay under. She kept wiggling so they really had to give her a lot of gas. After 30 minutes of work, we had exactly one puppy breathing on its own. Meanwhile more puppies were coming. We were having to set down pups that weren't awake yet to take the new pups. It was very stressful. It mostly worked out. Eleven of the twelve pups came around. The very last pup, a very dark brindle girl never woke up. I buried her beside our sweet Morrigan. She is in good company. Enough on that...

There was another piece of drama, after being tied off, one of the umbilical cords was cut to close and started bleeding very badly. The pup was losing a lot of blood. He was tied off three times and continued to bleed. The cure was for Dr. Robert to put a couple stitches in the wee tykes belly button! Mandy Bailey was looking after this baby and she was COVERED in blood. He was also one of the last to wake up. Everyone put in heroic efforts, but Mandy certainly had the most overtly demanding pup. For her efforts, that pup has already been named. His AKC name will be Morrigan's Mandeville to honor her dedication to EVERY litter that has been born at BAC. Thank you, Mandy.

Something else that should be noted is that Dr. Racelis found a tear in Susie's uterus. She was that full. AND again, there was a puppy across the "Y" of the uteran horns. The pup wasn't wedged in the way Fionn was but that may have been about to happen. It was a real traffic jam with three pups trying to get out at the same time. I am a firm supporter of Caesarians. The uterus is cleaned and the mother's stress IS lessened. I know we lost one this time but my faith is stronger than ever.

While she was still on the table, I could tell that Susie was awful skinny. She weighed in at a healthy 176 before the surgery. I would bet she left between 155 and 160. She looks really good and her breasts were PERFECT. No Mastitus, at least not yet. He sewed her up and we immediately took her in to get a bath. Half way through the bath, she was ready to have the intubation tube removed. We quickly finished her bath (she was covered in blood) and immediately set her on the floor. She laid on the floor for maybe five minutes before we thought she could get up and sure enough, twenty minutes after having the gas turned off, Susie WALKED out of the clinic. They were trying to make her stand up and I asked them to stop. I backed up from her and called her, she looked up at me with a, "You have got to be kidding" look in her eyes. I said, "Susie, come" and my glorious girl stood up on shaky legs, walked to me and stuck her head in my chest. She is SO strong. I have seen Mastiffs lay around for a couple hours after anesthesia. This girl must have a metabolism that just won't quit!

I went home with Tammie to help unload Sue. Mother and pups just wanted to sleep but some of them wanted to suckle. By morning Tammie reported that the babes were good feeders and all was well. Since we have the whelping box with the pig rails, we are trying to leave the pups with Susie as much as possible. The hope is that the pups will be calmer, that they won't nurse one another, that Susie can help clean them and they will get the right nutrition. So far so good. Tammie did get one scare when she discovered that Susie was laying on a little boy but he is fine. Susie is extremely careful and the laying on the little boy incident occurred when company was over and she was nervous.

As if that wasn't enough excitement, Thursday, I noticed that Trojan was paying a little extra attention to Lexus. She wasn't bleeding but I know my boy and I knew what that behavior meant. I called Susie and got Ron Frushon's phone number. I spoke to Ron at lunch on Friday and then spent Friday afternoon looking for a rental car to drive to Ellettsville, Indiana (that is where Roadie lives). I had absolutely no luck whatsoever. As usual a woman bailed me out. I called Jennifer and asked her what she was doing tomorrow. Anyone that knows Jennifer knows that she is an absolute sucker for information. I asked her if she would like to go look at Ci Ci (Roadie's sister). By the way, we need to pick up Roadie, and did I mention it is in Indiana and I intend to do this all in one day. Psssh, details.

Jennifer arrived at my house at 4:00a Saturday morning. We arrived at Ron's house just after 1:00. We would have arrive sooner but I took a short cut...

I hadn't seen Roadie in person since May 2005 in French Lick. I had seen a couple of pictures and Matt Drozdoff has told me about him many times. I knew that he was a massive dog. He and his sister are also the last two dogs that Susie bred. Pictures cannot do justice to this dog. His bone is almost unimaginable. I have never seen his equal. If you are looking for mass, Roadie is unsurpassed. I was looking for mass.

When we pulled into the driveway, he took my breath away. All I wanted was to get to him and touch him. I wanted to make sure that my eyes were not deceiving me and that what I thought was muscle was really muscle. The dog is amazing. The perfect dog for Lexus. They are going to make incredible babies. Mastiff world look out, here we come.

We had a nice conversation with Ron and his wife. We noticed that Ci Ci was coming into season. She is gorgeous. She is a complete lover and just leaned all over me. She gave me kisses all over my head. I was in heaven. I love this breed so much and to meet happy dogs is just such a thrill for me. Roadie wrestled with me and Ci Ci cleaned me. It was glorious. Alas, we had a long drive with another nine hours on the road, so without much ado, we loaded Roadie and southbound we went.

Roadie travels great and we WERE making great time even with pee breaks. We were beginning to think that we might make it home by 10:00 or 10:30. EEHHHHNNNTTT, wrong. We stopped in Priceville, Alabama for gas. When I went to start the truck, nothing. Hardly a click. The battery had shorted out internally and was smoking hot. Jennifer had jumper cables and we drove to the local Walmart Superstore. We bought cheap tools. Jennifer sacrificed a pillow case to the gods of sulfuric acid as I removed the battery from its hiding place. I still managed to burn my hands even with my pillow case oven mitts. The bastard was HOT, and stinky. We took the hot stinky battery into the store and people were going eeewwww! whats that smell. It was hilarious. We got the new nine year battery in and decided it was time for a break and had our only meal of the day outside of the truck. Arby's was good! (What is an Arby?) We made it home just after midnight,, and Jennifer drove home. I was worried about her driving but she made it safely.

I didn't feel like taking Roadie out to the barn so I let wim wander around for a while outside before taking him in. He was so silly. Roadie doesn't like being inside. I didn't know that. He was wandering arond and refusing to lay down. Finally I tackled him beside the bed and layed on him. That woke up Laura and I got an EVIL look. We stayed there for a while but I wanted back in my bed. I was slightly tired and it was now 2:00a. I crawled back into bed and he got back up. I went to sleep and found him asleep in the bathroom the next morning. Since then he has been out with Lexus and they are good buddies. She had started bleeding while I was away and should be ready to go later this week.

Tammie called and the pups are doing great. Just another day for Morrigan Mastiffs.