The First Puppy is the Hardest.

  In a series of normal births the first puppy is always the hardest on the bitch. As the process goes on, her excitement grows less, partly because the later births are easier. As one puppy after another is whelped, the pressure within her uterus and on the pelvic opening is decreased, her vagina and the external opening have become stretched, and the delivery gives her much less discomfort. This is true with normal births. Should her excitement suddenly increase instead of growing less, be on the look-out for something out of the ordinary. There may be a puppy misplaced within the uterus, there may be one coming feet first, or there may be on so large that it is having difficulty passing through the pelvic opening. If her discomfort should last any length of time, it is wiser to summon the veterinarian. Do not try to take the bitch to him.
It has been stated that puppies should arrive at intervals of twenty or thirty minutes. This is sometimes the case, but on looking over my records I find it would be hard to set any hard-and-fast rule.

Let me quote two litters, all normal births, as examples:

Litter A contained eight puppies, born in July.
The times of birth are as follows:
1.30 p.m., 2. p.m., 2.30p.m., 2.45 p.m., 3.10 p.m., 4.15 p.m., 6.20 p.m., and 8.30 p.m.

Litter B contained six puppies, whelped in October.
The times of birth for this litter are as follows:
4.30 p.m., 5.30 p.m., 6.15 p.m., 11 p.m., 11.40 p.m., and 12 midnight.

  This last litter had me worried, but they were all normal, and all live births. I could quote many other litters to prove that there can be no set time for delivery, though possibly there would not be so much variation as in these two.

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