need some advice for a friend about whelping chihuahua's

hi my friend just called me and told me her dog might be having puppies she has two chihuahua's and while she was waiting for her female to be fixed (long wait at the spay/neuter clinic) the male got her.
i told her she could be in for a c-section for sure and to have emergency numbers on hand as well as save up at least 3000.00 for it!
thank god her and her husband both work.
now she can't bring herself to still do the spay and abort the puppies (she wouldn't do it for herself either) so now the only question is how can i help her???
i have been at a birth before just not with a chihuahua so i kind have a idea of what goes on and how to help.
i have had to help the mom deliver a breech pup who got a little stuck and had to break the sac and tie the cord cause it wouldn't stop bleeding after she chewed it.

but chihuahua's scare me since sooooo much can happen!

i have told her to take her to the vet and have her examined in a few weeks so they can see how many and how big the pups are going to be and if she can deliver safely.

her female is 2 maybe 3lbs and the male is 3 lbs they are also both young she is 9-10 months (first heat my friend didn't know what to look for)
he is just over a year.

if she had of come to me i could have told her a bit of what to look for but i know i don't know everything that's why i am here.

i am going to try to be there when she goes into labor and i told her not to leave her alone the last two weeks but they both work so i might have to help she asked me to take her dogs but i am scared too do it alone.

the dogs also don't know me or my kids so i don't know how she will react once in labor.

someone please help im worried and i don't think she realizes yet what she got herself into!!!

how can i help her????

Has she considered an emergency spay? I mean really considered it? You said she can't. But does she know she could loose her dog? That she will be responsible for these pups (if she does the right thing) for the rest of their lives?

If not she should find a chi breeder who would be willing to help.

ditto.

That pup is SMALL and YOUNG.. she is taking a huge risk letting her whelp a litter.

I don't know much about whelping/breeding chihuahuas particularly but at the female's size and age I would think her life could be in danger if she was to carry this litter at this point in her life.

Maybe putting it in that perspective will help your friend make a decision. If she is ethically against abortion of all kinds, does that include an abortion to save the mother's life? Another thing to remind her of, is that humans and animals are different in that humans realize sex=getting pregnant. Dogs can't reason out a connection like that, just like they can't reason out something like chasing cars=getting run over. We need to protect them from doing an activity that is harmful. And if we fail them then we need to step up and correct the problem. If that means aborting a litter that could kill the female, then that's her responsibility.

And sending a pregnant female to whelp in a stranger's home sounds extremely stressful and like a bad idea to me. If it was my dog I would do a spay/abort.

I'm against abortion too ... but had a litter aborted because it either was Mother and son or Mother and Father . It was so sad for me , but I loved my breed too much to go though a messed up litter . No fault of my own /// a sitter let my female in heat out ! Were these Chis related ??

See if she'll go on an outing with you to a couple of shelters. Have her look at all the dogs languishing in those cells, homeless, lonely and bored. Ask her if she still thinks bringing more puppies into the world instead of aborting these fetuses which are NOT yet dogs... is a kindness. For every dog she brings into the world due to her carelessness, there is one fewer dog adopted from a life of hell, alone in a shelter. If she's so stuck on this misplaced morality, she needs to go through a couple of shelters and really think about what she is doing by not aborting these fetuses. They do not know their future. The mother is not aware of future. She is projecting what she thinks is the "right" thing to do into the wrong context and onto an animal that doesn't think the way we do.

And like everyone said, she is placing her own dog at great risk.

no i don't think they were related and she isn't going to do the abortion thing i have tried that option.
i also did warn her that she could loose her chi cause her uterus could burst from not being big enough to carry the pups.

she doesn't think this will happen so all i can do is support her and try to be there for the whelping and inform her on as much info as i can.

Get the male altered right away. Give her the money if you can at all, they have clinics for males to get neutered for under $200.00. Find a good vet ready 24/7 to help her puppy deliver more puppies. Make sure she knows where all emergency vets are near her. Have her go into the vet tomorrow to learn more about how to take care of a preggo Chi puppy and what all she should be doing to keep her puppy alive and also the new puppies.

Find out who the good vets are for toy breed c-section sin your area, too- I promise there wil be someone who the local reputable breeders prefer to the others.

unfortunatly it is HIGHLY unlikely a 2-3 lb female will survive the birth...
when breeding chis some things MUST be kept in mind...
chis are highly prone to c-sections in GOOD situations...because of this some general rules must be applied when breeding chis...
the female should be LARGER than the male! ALWAYS!
a good breeder will not breed a female under 5lbs...and most try for a male at least 1lb smaller (hoping the pups will be small enough to be carried and delivered without too much trouble) breeding a larger male to a smaller female is asking for trouble.

ill use my chis for example.
vixie is 5.4lbs, she comes from free whelping lines (no c-sections)
dodger is 3lbs...he comes from free whelping lines...
pelvic xrays before hand good
xrays and ultrasounds after said pups were good size and shouldnt have a problem...

1 pup didnt descend...$2700 later vixie had 4 healthy pups and was spayed during an emergency c-section.
all precautions were taken...reserch done and im experienced, i knew what to look for and got her to the e-clinic imediatly, even then we almost lost 1 pup and theres always risks with a c-section as well as high risk of infection after.

now at 8-9 months old shes about full grown making her WAY too tiny to be having puppies anyway.
shes also WAY too young, chis particularly are mentally slow to mature as pups, letting this dog have puppies will be like letting a 6 yr old child have a baby...
chis this young are highly prone to abandoning their litters and bottle raising chihuahua pups, particularly pups that tiny is like trying to bottle raise a MOUSE! IF they survive...

unfortunatly in this case an emergency spay NOW before those fertilized eggs turn into fully developed puppies in that tiny little girl is the BEST and SAFEST bet if she truly cares for her dog.

i understand the thought of abortion to many is like some abomination, the worst thing in the world, but any experineced chi breeder will tell her, if she lets this poor girl come to term delivery will likely KILL the girl...and theres a HUGE risk with even a c-section when the time is due as chis that small do NOT do well with c-sections.
its unfortunatly
VERY likely,...if she goes through with this pregnancy she will loose all the puppies AND the mother anyway.

hopefully her vet will tell her the same thing and encorage an e-spay...a female chi that small, no matter what her age should NEVER be bred!


EDIT TO ADD:
if she absolutly despite all best efforts REFUSES to e=spay this little girl DO NOT! i repeat DO NOT, let this dog even attempt to free whelp, at that size you will not have the time to get her to an emergenc clinic WHEN the need arises and theres absolutly no way you can assist if a puppy is breach/undescends in a dog that small!
IF she decides to go through with the pregnancy she NEEDS to book an apointment for a c-section before hand...(just like with an english bull dog prebook the apointment) she needs to take her in on the date of the surgery and let the vets csection the litter out...if she treis to give birth naturally and something goes wrong its seconds with a dog that small, she WILL loose the mother and litter if even a minute of problem arises!

she should have the vet spay the female when shes opne on the c-section table so this NEVER happens again...i would also suggest letting her stay for at least an overnight/day at the vets office to make sure shes going to feed the puppies and is ok/recovering properly from the anesthesia.

Wow, letting this pregnancy go on is a serious death wish. Truffles breeder will NOT use any females under 5 pounds for breeding, and shes had a few c-sections herself.

Yeah, I completely agree. I couldn't imagine letting any female under 4.5lbs have puppies

This poor puppy! I am actually worried sick that the OPs friend is going to go ahead with this!!!

Agree !

when did she tie? For all she knows it might not BE "abortion"...I mean who's to say she even took? Not unusual for a young bitch to miss...lordy. If it's within a couple weeks, to a month there's no saying there is even anything there viable. Abortion...for all she knows it's merely a spay on a young bitch.

So let me get this right, she had her girl in the vet's office for the spay, the girl got mounted in the waiting room and she just turned around and went home instead of going through with an already scheduled spay???

I really hope your friend realizes she's going to kill her dog.

I'm thinking they ment more like, the place is so busy that they weren't able to book the spay for a few months out.

When I was younger, not working, and had to use clinics because my grandparents had to pay for all vetcare(and they have the mindset of "if it costs more than $100 shoot the dog and get a new one), the waits just to get an appt were INSANE.

the tie just happened about a week ago the puppies should be born about june 8th.

i am worried too i am trying to get her to bring the dog to the vet to be checked out so maybe he/she can tell her the mistake she is making but i can't force her.

she just told me her dog just threw up some clear mucus she wants to know if dogs get morning sickness and she said her dog has never been sick before.

i don't know if they do and i don't know of warning signs if a pregnancy is going sour in chi's i do know if she is too small her uterus can rupture but i don't know how far along they have to be before that happens.

i don't really know what else to tell her i have told her everything you guys have told me but she thinks she will be fine but she says she would die if she lost her.

i don't know i feel im stuck between a rock and a hard place!!

i also told her that breeders use a 4-6 lb female to a 2-4 lb male and that a male has to be smaller and that no dog should be bred under 2 she told me she read on a chihuahua website somewhere that they can be bred at 9 months so she should be fine!

she is stubborn what can i say?!?!?!

Well there is only so much you can do...you can tell people something, back it up with facts, show them proof, whatever and it doesnt matter.

You have told her the dangers, encouraged her to go see a vet. There is nothing more you can do.

Hopefully she doesnt have to see your right the hard way.

Since she sounds dead-set against the spay, I agree that she should pre-book the c-section at least ...