Birth pangs

At one with nature.

Our pet Labrador Betsy was expecting her first litter and all around there was an air of expectation. I had had some reservations about the whole process of breeding but the vet had said that every bitch ought to go through the reproductive procedure at least once for medical reasons.That clinched the decision for us.While confirming Betsy’s pregnancy, the vet reassured us with a, “ Don’t worry. She’s fine and dogs will see through the whole thing themselves. You can expect the delivery to take place anytime after sixty days of gestation”, whereupon he prescribed a medicine to be administered around the expected date to facilitate the delivery and another for the post delivery phase.” Got to build up her strength”, he said. I left the vet’s place, my head in a whirl. Meanwhile my husband who believed in meticulously planning even if it were merely our pet’s pregnancy, had already charted the road-map to D-day. He put up the schedule for her medicines on the kitchen menu board while instructing me to buy off the medicines at the druggist’s without waiting for the actual labour to start. “ Don’t forget the medicines”, he muttered. “ Also please remember not to handle her medicines with bare hands , as the vet instructed.Can’t trust anybody’s memory”, he tailed off darkly. Keen that it should be the perfect Lying-in, he went on, “ it’s all very well for the vet to say that the dog will take care of everything but how do we know what to expect and how to prepare”. Whereupon, the answer hit me in a brilliant moment and I exclaimed triumphantly, “ the Internet, of course. We’ll have a Three Idiots like childbirth- an internet guided birth ’, I went on enthusiastically. “ Humph”, my husband snorted but conceded that the Net was a treasure -trove of information.
I was commissioned with the job of googling Pet- care sites. “ Your dog is going to welcome her Bundle of Joy- this process is called Whelping”, proclaimed one site. “ In such times, she would not want to be disturbed. Guide her to a dark and sheltered corner in your house, a week ahead of the whelping. Better still, Build a WHELPING BOX for your very own pet where she can deliver her pups” The site went on to give elaborate instructions on how to build the Whelping Box- “The whelping box is the single biggest item needed. It should provide enough room for the bitch to lay and stretch out comfortably without being so big that the puppies get 'lost.' For large breed dogs, it is also nice if a person can sit in the box with mom during labor and delivery and to play with the puppies later. The floor must be level and stable. The sides should be high enough to keep 4-week-old puppies in, but be hinged or have a door so the bitch can come and go. The whelping box should be set up in a warm, quiet, safe location etc.etc.........”
The vet had warned us that the bitch might try and select a place of her own to lay the pups- perhaps even the garden. To forestall such an eventuality, we felt that it was better to try out the dark, sheltered place option first. Betsy was always used to wandering in and out of the house but I definitely did not want her to deliver inside the house. “ Well”, said my husband. “We will have to prevent Betsy from delivering in the garden because the pups will be exposed to the elements”. Accordingly, the entire family trooped to the old, unused garage to modify it to the requirements of a Whelping room. We cleaned it up, laid down old but fresh bedsheets and scattered Betsy’s favourite toys, all in an attempt to acclimatize Betsy to her new surroundings, in the manner the website had instructed us. The next step was to make Betsy feel at home in her new surroundings. “Be with your dog”, the website advised. “ Make her feel relaxed and comfortable so that she does not feel anxious that she is being segregated from the people and places that she knows” Betsy had accompanied us to and fro in our trips to the garage. “ Sit Betsy. Lie down Betsy”, my husband and I said in turn. But Betsy merely sniffed at the sheets and gave us a bewildered look as if to say, “Now, what’s all this?” Try as we did, we could not coax her to sit even for a minute in her new home. As we turned to go into the house, Betsy started walking back with us, tail wagging merrily, almost as if saying, “Now why do you want to leave me there?” “ So that’s the end of a dark, sheltered place”, said my husband in disgust looking down at placid Betsy wagging her tail and saying, “Woof, Woof! I love you. Don’t leave me alone”.
The next step according to the site was the creation of a Whelping Box. My husband and nephew dragged out a few wooden planks from the garage onto our verandah, which was where Betsy slept in the night and created a complicated structure, which went by the name of Whelping Box. But, to me it looked more like a maze-it had so many partitions and turns! Anyway, My husband and nephew proudly surveyed their handiwork and repeated the process of spreading sheets and toys in the box. Betsy got in the way all the time, and became very excited at what she thought was a game being played out. “ Now this is where Betsy will deliver her pups, won’t you Betsy”, declared my husband firmly, looking at Betsy. I could not help making a wisecrack, “ I wonder how she will figure out a way to enter the Box when she is in the throes of pain. It looks like a labyrinth”, whereupon my husband gave me an exasperated look.Betsy, meanwhile ran in and out of the box, not sitting down even for a moment, thoroughly enjoying herself.
The infrastructural groundwork had been prepared but how were we to prepare for the actual delivery-what about the indications that delivery time is approaching. The average gestation period was around sixty-two days.We were to look out for signs of restlessness,breathing difficulty, loss of appetite etc., the presence of which would indicate that the hour was near. Post the sixtieth day, the entire family was on tetherhooks, keenly observing Betsy for any change in her body and behaviour. However Betsy was her usual normal self.She would lie in the sitting room , under my husband’s feet, and then get up to sniff at some dark corner. My husband would promptly say that maybe she would deliver in the Living Room. I would give him a long-suffering look as if to say that she had showed no signs of labour yet. Her belly had not swollen and she was eating heartily. Like a Rocket launch,Excitement mounted as the hour drew nearer and nearer. The servant declared, “ Amma, Betchi (that’s how she called Betsy) is digging furiously under the plantain tree. She will deliver her pups there, for sure”. Betsy who was sitting nearby gave her a look as if to say,”So what do you know?” In this manner, there were as many guesses as family members as to where Betsy would finally deliver . Betsy however went about her business as usual, her stolid looks giving nothing away.
Finally D-day came on a fine Wednesday morning. Betsy had shown signs of restlessness and fatigue, the previous evening itself and we realized that the time was near. She had not eaten a morsel and was alternately digging vigorously or sitting down panting, with her tongue hanging out. At night before turning in, we guided her into the LABYRINTH and made her lie down comfortably. “ Good Night, Betsy”, we said. “Happy Delivery”, even as Betsy looked at us plaintively as if to say, “What’s happening to me?” Morning came and there were no signs of the pups yet but Betsy was clearly having acute discomfort. We patted her and left her alone in the Whelping box. No sooner had we left her, she rushed off to a corner of the garden. She started sniffing and digging. One by one, the pups came, four in all, cute and cuddly, little furry balls. Betsy was sitting on a muddy patch, under a shrub of greenery exhausted but content to allow the tiny ones to wriggle up to her. Mother and pups were all covered in mud.
So that was how Betsy delivered her pups in the Lap of Nature. The same night however, we shifted Betsy and the pups to the Labyrinth. Both Betsy and the pups settled comfortably in their new home. Lying down on the sheets spread out in the Labyrinth, Betsy gave one of her “trusting” looks and wagged her tail as if to say, “ Thank you for making me and my pups comfortable. I know that we are in safe hands”. Betsy’s Lying-in had taught us an important lesson of life-that the laws of nature applied universally to all living things. In spite of our best efforts to have Betsy deliver in the Whelping Box in a safe protected environment, she had chosen instead a patch of earth!