Friday 25th September 2015 – When it all gets too much

Normally I like my own space in bed. There’s just me and teddy and plenty of space to stretch out. What’s a boy to do when a heavily pregnant girl says “I’m scared. Can I get into your bed please?” I did the only thing I could and didn’t make a fuss.

Shadow is having a progesterone test this morning. It will tell us if whelping is imminent. Her progesterone drops 36 – 48 hours before whelping. We won’t get the result until Saturday morning but it will tell the emergency vet if she needs to be on standby on Sunday and will if it is still high allow us all to relax for a day or so and let our Mistress sleep. There was a brief false alarm with Shadow’s temperature  yesterday morning, but our Mistress took it a couple of hours later and concluded it was a blip or a misreading. Shadow is still very settled and preferring not to move any more than necessary. She does want to be with our Mistress the whole time and is arguing with Aristotle whenever he is nearby. Our Mistress has told Ari that if I he can’t keep his thoughts to himself he will go into kennels immediately so the house is nice and calm for Shadow. He’s sulking as you can imagine. His last words were, ‘So it’s all right for her to say what she likes to me, but I can’t say anything back because she’s pregnant.’ I get the impression it is a sentiment many men might identify with! I’m just glad it’s him in the firing line and not me.

I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but when the men finished the roadworks on our road they left all their signs behind. For some reason our road is now littered with signs that say things like ‘ramp’, ‘road closed’, ‘work in progress’ and ‘overhead cables’. Obviously there are still overhead cables but none of the rest of it has been true for a month or more. Anyway, our Mistress has been doing some ‘tidying’ up and says the bollards will come in very handy both for the village fun days and the Entlebucher fun days. I don’t want any part of it, obviously, although I did wonder about putting the ‘Work in progress’ sign outside Shadow’s maternity unit, formerly known as the utility!

Today the very last things will be put in place for Shadow. The car will be prepared for taking her to the vet if necessary while in labour. That involves large quantities of clean newspaper on the back seat and towels being available. Everything which is not required will be removed. Our Mistress is also going to make up a batch of emergency puppy food and freeze it, so that it is on standby. Other than that the best thing she could do is get some sleep!

You still have time to join in the guessing when the first pup will be born. Leave a comment to tell us when you think. So far we have:

Eileen – 3am Saturday
Dickens – Sat 26^th Midday
Val – Sunday (her birthday)
Sarah – 2am Sunday
Cassandra – sunrise Sunday
Carol – 11 am Sunday
Lynn – 8pm Sunday
David – 6.30am Monday
Kathryn – 3pm Monday

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