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Birthright of a Black Dog I spent yesterday waiting for a beautiful, 60 pound, yellow Lab to have babies. Aleasha, large and round, came to us late in her pregnancy. She is a beautiful dog who was seen around town. Every time Constance went to get her, she couldn’t be found. Friendly, gentle; eventually we learned that someone had taken her home and tied her to a tree. When it was obvious that she was pregnant and soon to deliver, her new owners decided to take her to a local campground and dump her. They hoped that someone would look into her lovely amber eyes and decide to take her in. We were delighted to find her and give her a home and a safe place to have her pups.
A dog’s pregnancy is 63 days or nine weeks long. I watch for all of the signs of impending birth. Momma’s body grows and swells. Milk comes in. Mom begins to look for a cool, dark, safe place to deliver; under the porch would be great with her, but I don’t agree. Mom sleeps a lot. She likes to hang out in her selected place: a whelping box, in the dog house, under the bed, in the back of the closet. On the day of birth, she begins to pant. But she might just be hot. She might pace or dig in her nest to get the blankets just right, but that can go on for a few days. In other words, I said It has got to be tonight so often that everyone stopped listening to me. There is one sure way to tell … well, almost sure. Between 12 and 24 hours before birth, Mom’s temperature will drop below 99.0 degrees. Below 99.0; the puppies will be here within 24 hours.
Here are some of the rules of whelping: Big dogs often have more pups than small dogs. If the dog is in labor for more than two hours and doesn’t deliver, call your vet. If the water breaks and the puppy doesn’t come within two hours, call the vet. One pup can follow another quickly, but it is normal for there to be two hours between pups. I programmed my phone to call the vet every two hours so that I could listen to his mantra: “Wait, watch, stay out of it, and call me back in two hours.”
Black dogs are the last to be adopted. Black dogs are the last dogs to be adopted and the first dogs to be euthanized. Let’s not blame the shelters. We are simply responding to the choices made by those who come to adopt a pup. Is it because black is a common color? Is it because it is hard to photograph a black pup and therefore they don’t show as well on an adoption website? Or is it simply that it is too hard to overcome our cultural preference for blue-eyed blondes and white dogs? “Big black dogs need love too” is a common adopt-a-thon banner.
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We got Aleasha too late in her pregnancy to be spayed … at least, according to me. Many shelters would make a different choice, and I imagine that some day I will join them. But with the beautiful Aleasha, I succumbed to my emotions. So there I was, waiting, watching, and realizing how little so many people, including myself, know about dogs, pregnancy, and whelping. 
Even that “sure sign” is not a clean-cut red flag. A dog’s temperature is normally between 101 and 102 degrees, but for a week or more before delivery, it is often 100 point something. On Thursday night, I went to bed at 11:00. Aleasha’s temperature was 98.9. Does that really count as under 99.0? I mean, did Aleasha read the same book? Did she sign a contract? I don’t know. At 6:00 the next morning, her temperature was 98.4. Now that is under 99. Aleasha was panting, her face was stressed, her temp was low. It must have dropped during the night. She was in labor. I told Patti, “Puppies in two hours,” a mantra I would repeat often during the long, hot day. 
Pant, pant, pant; pacing, fussing with the bed, and obviously in distress; I was a mess. Compared to me, Aleasha was relatively calm. Just as it is hard to tell if 98.9 is really under 99, it is hard to tell early labor from LABOR. Dogs can be stoic. But by 2:00, it seemed to me that things had gone on a bit too long with no results. Aleasha was confused by what she was feeling, and she wasn’t acting like other dogs that I have helped to deliver. The pressure she was feeling made her think that she needed to “go out,” but “going out” only resulted in empty pushing. I called the vet at 2:00. He said, “Call back at 4:00.” 
At 3:30, out on the concrete and not in her whelping box, a 1 pound little girl pup came feet first into the world. Her twin followed in 25 minutes. At 12:45 AM, the 13 th pup, the last baby, arrived. All but one came feet first. After the first two 1-pound twins, all the other pups weighed between 11 and 13 ounces. Unlike their beautiful, golden mom, all the pups are black with white feet and different length socks. All are beautiful, and still, there are now 13 more black puppies whose primary struggle to survive won’t be from fighting the weather, Mom’s starvation, parasites, or predators. Their struggle for survival is not one that I can fix with medicine or care. They will fight to survive because they are black. They will fight to survive because they don’t have Mom’s golden coat. 
Mom doesn’t care what color her pups are. She loves them all, each valiant little life. She hopes that you will too, and so do I. Thank you to those of you who have or will choose a black dog. Many of you don't even know that the life you saved had an extra burden in the struggle for love, care, and a place in the world. May the pups born yesterday have the blessings of respect, play, and affection follow them throughout their lives. May we have the same blessing in ours.