What Do I Look Like, an OB/GYN?

This story is courtesy of Dr. May B. Insane, who shared it with me recently via telephone... All the "I" usage is her words.

So I get this call about 10 pm while I was working overnight. It's this lady on the phone. "Oh dear, my dog is 66 days pregnant and acting like she's going to have puppies!" I ask some questions and determine, yes, she was bred on purpose, yes, she is showing nesting behavior, and yes, she does seem to be having contractions. So I ask, "So, sounds like she should be having puppies anytime now."

"Ok," she says, "I'm on my way!" "Wait," I exclaim, "why are you coming here?" She replies, "Well, I'm not going to let her have puppies AT HOME!" With that she hangs up, before my smart mouth can retort, "Well than, why did you breed her?"

She arrives about 20 minutes later with a charmingly under bitten foo-foo breed with long hair who is in active labor. I'm surprised she didn't start popping out puppies in the backseat of this lady's car. Course, that would have been pretty funny. I examine her, and take her in the back to ICU, load her into a cage with lots of comfy blankets, and leave her be. While I proceed to be swamped with other actual emergencies, she sits there, pants and stops contracting. Every five seconds the owners ask the receptionist about progress reports. I keep sending a tech up to answer them, and the tech tries to explain why the doctor is not coming up every time...

Three hours later, not a puppy to be seen. I was walking to her cage to scoop her up and send her home when OOPS! Out pops a puppy. I leave her to do her thing as I go out and tell the owners that she show is on the road.

Two hours later she has four new members of her family all wiggling and crying. I had had to help her break the placenta for the first one, but the others she handled like a pro. I palpated her abdomen gently and felt one other puppy in there. So I left her to do it.

Two hours later, she'd curled up to feed her brood and her Mom was breathing down my back more every second. So I popped her a little oxytocin, and our popped number five.

So off they went with their new little family, so proud and gushing thanks. "Oh, what would I ever do without you. If you hadn't been here, Fluffy would have had to have her puppies AT HOME!!"

I just stared at her as she walked out the door.