I mean, they don’t ever just explode, do they?

So, Leslie is lending me her whelping box.  Which she’s never used, but “said” she put together once when she got it. 

Turns out, at least by the time it got to me, there was at least 1 piece missing in the floor.  The directions were…unhelpful, but no matter which way I tried things I couldn’t manage to make a complete floor.    So, off to Lowe’s I went and instead of getting 3 pieces of floor (why wouldn’t you want a solid 1-piece floor?) I had them cut a single sheet.  Then I decided that painted wood would probably be difficult to keep clean and sanitary, so I went wandering in the tile department and found these standard Armstrong commercial floor tiles.  You know, the ones you saw in your school throughout your entire childhood.    For $.66 each, I really couldn’t beat it.  16 of those, plus some adhesive and a little bio-blocking caulk to fill in the inevitable gaps since I’m not a flooring person by trade.  And voila!

It might not break down quite as small now because of the solid floor piece.  And hopefully Leslie doesn’t mind the lilac color…that’s what you get when the 4-year old helps you pick paint.  Although as Leslie did point out, purple is the color of good ribbons!

Without and with the pig rails.

This is the best I can do.  I made a big blank white screen on my computer and taped it to that, then took a picture with my camera and fiddled with it in photoshop.  Interesting ’cause I went back to look at Kate’s, and they are much more calcified and bright, but hers was taken 4 days before whereas this is 9 or so. The “x” marks are from the vet and mark skulls.  The “?” in the lower right is the 7th, he initially wasn’t sure but by the end we all thought it was one too.  There’s another possible “?” in the upper left that I don’t think is one.  But, there seem to be a good number of spines in the upper leftish/middle of her belly that I’m not sure have corresponding heads…

You should be able to click on them to make them bigger.  I included two different contrast settings, it seemed like I could see some stuff better at different contrasts.

X-ray this morning says 7, possibly 8-9 puppies.  She was listening after all!

I tried to scan in the x-ray, because they don’t have digital.  No luck though, bummer!

…that I chose to do this to her.  LOL  Poor Lizard, who is normally quiet but cheerful and always following me around…but it’s too much effort for her now.  Although it’s quite amusing to see that her prefered sleeping position is now on her back.  She had a few blissful moments today rolling in something in the backyard, so I snapped her picture.  It’s 85 degrees now so her time outside is very quick potty trips before she’s barking at the back door so she can come inside to station herself on top of the A/C vent once again.

A general poll…if you were going to x-ray, when would you do it?  I’ve heard everything from day 43 to day 60.  I’m impatiently tapping my foot here to find out about how many babies are in there!

Hanging out with Charlie

It's almost pornographic...

I won’t post belly pictures every few days.  But now that she’s popped, OMG she’s really popped!  Every time I look at her I’m just taken aback by how big she is, and Charlie has taken to calling her “Fat Lizzie”.    And she still has 2.5 – 3 weeks left to go??  This morning she fell/rolled down the bottom 4 stairs (she seems fine, thank goodness), so now I’m paranoid about that and will be hefting her giant bulk down the stairs myself, I guess.  Should be interesting between her and Jack, I’ll be getting my exercise this month for sure.    Speaking of giant bulk, she’s put on like 6 pounds which I have no idea whether that’s high, low, or indifferent, but it is what it is.

I’m trying to decide whether to use the whelping box that my friend Leslie has so graciously offered to loan to me, or to build one myself.  The nesting part of my soul wants the activity of building a box myself.  But seems silly when there is a perfectly good one to borrow.

Lizzie either swallowed a large rock, or THERE’S PUPPIES IN THERE!  And now my next thought is ACK!  I need to get ready!! 

Today I flipped Lizzie over to grind toenails and this is what I see:

Also, her belly has gone from 18.5″ to almost 20″.

Speaking of toenails, Brady managed to rip another one off this weekend while he was at my in-laws.  It was about 80% ripped out and looking quite disgusting, so took him to the vet yesterday where they had to sedate him in order to take it off and cauterize the nail bed.  This is the third time he has done this, varying degrees of severity, at my in-laws…something about the spacing of the boards on their deck/stairs must be *just right* for his nails.  At this rate I figure sooner or later he just won’t have any nails to grind anymore. 

So far, Lizzie’s stomach seems firm, her nipples are bigger, and last night she barfed up her dinner.  Lizzie not being one to waste food, that’s a rarity. 

4 weeks-ish as of yesterday.  So fingers still crossed!

If Lizzie is indeed pregnant, the puppies are due ON Dave’s birthday, June 17.  (that’s counting from the second breeding which sounds like it was probably the most fertile day)

I don’t know if it can be considered a symptom of anything, but she’s not letting Brady bully her around anymore.  They’ve had more snippy “fights” since she got back than they have ever had before.  Laura told me that the first symptom is “more affectionate”, but I honestly don’t think that’s possible for Lizzie…  But interesting enough, she has suddenly become a lot more lovely dovey with Dave.  They have always had their “moments” during the day when she gets scritches from him, but jeez the other night I came into the living room and she was so splayed out on his lap, eyes closed, I thought maybe I should leave them alone for a while.