… spent last night trying to get one of dogs used to the whelping box, as she was starting to hint at early stages of parturition: nervousness,
Boerboel and Puppies - Still in utero, though
nesting behavior, etc. so I laid down with her in the whelping box to try to help her settle there and see the box as a safe place (given her own choice, the cool dirt under the deck is a space which she much prefers, but that just won’t work well for me if she wants any help.)
Of course, I woke up hours later with a stiff neck only to find that I’m in the box alone, and she’s sleeping on my bed.
See, Boerboels are smart dogs. 
So, no puppy/puppies yet, but she’s back in the box and settled a bit. Today is officially her due date, so any day now, right? Well, doing some reading, and one interesting set of proceedings on parturition states some scary stuff on uterine inertia (lack of progression to active or sufficiently strong contractions):
A common error made by owners and veterinarians is to delay intervention based on the fact that the dam does not appear to “be in trouble.” The fetuses are often severely stressed long before the dam shows clinical signs relating to their demise. The dam should be examined and ultrasound performed to assess fetal viability if the expected due date has arrived and no signs of labor exist, irrespective of a lack of maternal discomfort or illness.
The downside of reading is that you’re prone to assume that every thing that can go wrong will. 
Now I’m worried. It reminds me of spending time reading the “what to expect when you’re expecting” books to find at the end of each chapter a list of things that you should rush to the hospital for. Great reading for worriers. 
Anyway, here are a couple links for you if you’re looking for whelping information. First off is a gestation calculator. There are a bunch of these out there but I picked this one as I feel there’s a certain irony in having a Canadian breeder of South African Boerboels linking to a gestation chart of Malamutes from South Africa.
Here are some general breeding tips at Spitzvuur Kennels. Also some of my own wisdom on dog breeding:
Don’t.
Well, let me rephrase: Ensure you’re in it for the right reasons, and ensure you have some homes lined up. If you think you’re going to make any money at the game, let me be clear that even if my dogs cost me nothing, this pregnancy itself is still running a loss, thanks to vet visits, and all the stuff you need to make a go of the actual birth. And trust me, quality dogs are not free. Dog breeding is only going to make you money if you’re one of the top breeders, and to get to that point I suspect you’ll have to work off of passion and a big deficit, and tell the rest of the world to go screw itself for twenty plus years.
Actually, if you are willing to take the loss, and if you are willing to pre-find suitable homes (the cost of maintaining traffic to this website is exactly so that I can keep a list of interested people around) and if you’re willing to stand by those dogs until they die, and finally make hard choices on culling from the breeding program to ensure that only viable dogs are used, then you are by all measures a breeder as good as any other that is already in play in the world. Who knows, you may even do better.
Okay, I’m going back to sleep by the box. Wish her luck.
).
