whelping

Question
my dog had puppys last week an they were 7 days early. Where I live we get a lot of snow and of course it was a white-out all night, so I could not get her any help. She started with the greenish black stuff at 4:30 pm and did not deliver until 1:00 am. She had 4 pups and they all were born alive. The first died shortly after he was born. The other ones started getting weaker and died, the one that was born last is still doing fine, but when he was born his sack had a dark band around it and the mom was having a hard time getting it to break so I opened it for her but there was another sack and so I broke that for her also. What was the dark band around his sack from and why was there two sacks on him?

Answer
The stripe is called the zonary placenta and is a normal part of the chorion. The second sac you saw was the amnion. Both of these are normal placental structures. It is not clear why the pups did not make it but would certainly recommend the mother and renmaing pup be examined by a veterinarian ASAP.

Dr. G.