Aura has been doing excellent. We’ve had her at the local community college almost daily where she walks and jogs with us. Sometimes she does some obstacles. Here is a little Vine video of her:
Exercise is very important for a pregnant dog. We don’t overdo it, it just a mile track to help keep everything inside nice and tone- very important, especially for large litters.
She is definitely losing hair around her nipples at this point- a normal and good sign. Her belly is getting larger and tighter. We expect to be able to feel puppies inside around December 7th. Opinion on this varies but on Aura’s B litter we could feel them about 10 days prior to whelp. She definitely knows what is going on and has been very affectionate lately and resting up.
She just had her final nail clipping and tomorrow will be her final bath before the big day. She’ll start to get too big to maneuver in the shower after this week, and we don’t want to do anything to make her uncomfortable.
We have scheduled her Xray at NCSU for December 8, so we’ll know how many puppies to expect during whelping (birth). This week we will also be transitioning her over to Royal Canin “German Shepherd Puppy 30” food along with some of our own supplements. This post shows exactly what we feed Aura and the puppies.
The time has gone by so fast this time around.
Sometimes I wish I could work with dogs 24×7. One dog is enough for me but training has always appealed to me. There are so many different things Shepherds can be trained to do. Breeding is a blast for our family but 3 litters is enough. I’ve also looked at pet stores available to franchise. That link is for “Splash and Dash Groomerie and Boutique”. There are many franchise opportunities out there and that one is very interesting.
Anyways, we’ll post some more pics when Aura starts to get noticeably larger. (She already is but the camera hides it).
