Boerboel Bitch, in early Pregnancy

[as always, this is provided without warranty or guarantees - check with vets before doing anything based on what I speculate on here on my site... (citations are in brackets where provided)]

One of the cool things about knowing that I don’t know everything is that you get to ask people for advice and you’re totally open to everything you hear. One of the interesting things I heard from an experienced large-scale, large-breed canine breeder recently is that they will routinely self administer a hormone called Oxytocin to females once all the pups have been born. I have also spoken to other breeders who do not do any such thing without a vet present. Some of these differences are regional (different countries and states have different rules about who can administer hormones, etc.) and some are experience based.

So I decided to check the books.

My idiot’s one sentence simplification is that:

Oxytocin is a natural part of the birthing process, and is used as a signal to both start contractions (my fuzzy parental memories recollect that this is what is used to induce labor in pregnant humans who have gone too far “past the due date” as well) and to ensure they finish fully. It also plays an important role in mammary function (“milk ejecting actions”, as described by Shirley Johnston, et. al. (1)).

Why administer extra when there’s a chance the bitch has already produced plenty of her own? Because the theory is that if you really love your bitch, you want to be sure they finish all the contractions, thus expelling all the remaining placental material, and thus preventing a tragically common and often fatal problem with bitches called pyometra (a nasty uterine infection).

However, the practice, while apparently relatively common, is not without naysayers:

If the pups are alive and well there is no need to administer oxytocin to the bitch postpartum to enhance uterine involution. If the fetuses were delivered dead or the pups die shortly following delivery, the administration may be indicated in order to assure normal involution. The nursing stimulus of the fetuses is an adequate stimulus for oxytocin release. (2, my bolding)

Finally, here are a few (my selection) other indications where you may be likely to run into the use of the hormone as part of your whelp (3):

- In evacuating tissue and debris from the uterus in cases of pyometra or endometritis.- For preventing or controlling postpartum uterine hemorrhage.

- To aid in evacuation, debridement and drainage in mastitis.- Initiation of lactation following parturition.

- To induce labor.

- Post operative contraction of the uterus following caesarian section.

So, what will I do? I guess I’m going to take a bit of an educated risk: I have a certain faith in the Boerboel as a dog who hasn’t had the “maternity bred out of them” yet, and assume that they will be more robust than the typical dog, thus I will wait and see.

Unfortunately, there’s still a certain flaw in that “evolution” logic: If a mother has a litter of pups, and dies of that process after the pups are weaned, is there a negative pressure, evolutionarily speaking? Or, let me put it this way: If you have a mother who has 15 pups, and the mother dies of pyometra, why would the breed still not survive on the strength of the 15 remaining pups and all of their litters, assuming they live until weaning? Sure, it would be better if the mom survived to have another litter, but she could well be a casualty of Darwin to know that the line has carried on with those 15.

And, as a counter argument (and further confusion) to the robustness argument, my bitch is apparently expecting a small litter, thus leading one to wonder if the “nursing stimulus” is possibly related to the number of nursing pups a dam has. I could not find research on answers to that question.

So the current plan is that I’m not going to administer it myself, but I am keeping my vet’s phone number handy.

Sources:

(1) Canine and Feline Theriogenology, (Saunders, 2001) Shirley D. Johnston, Margaret V. Root Kustritz, Patricia Schultz Olson, p.121

(2) PARTURITION (conference proceedings), Walter R. Threlfall, DVM, MS, PhD, Diplomate, American College of Theriogenologists
Theriogenology Area

(3) Synthetic Oxytocin Fact Sheet at Drugs.com (“Oxytocin Injection for Veterinary Use”)