MY PRECIOUS DOG IS HAVING LABORED BREATHING

Question
Hello Jennifer,
  My precious 17 month old Pit-Bull, Trouble, has
been having labored breathing every since she went
into labor on August 7th of this year. She had 11 puppies and after she had them her breathing seemed to return to normal to me. But, it has returned and seems like it has gotten progressively worse and more often since then. I
took her took our Vet and they said that nothing was wrong with her except for her white blood cell count was a little high. They gave us some antibiotics and said that she should be fine. She
was not fine, she still had labored breathing, so I called them up freaking out and crying because this is my baby, and they said that even though her calcium showed up normal on the blood test to come in and get some calcium pills to give her, so I did. This has not worked at all, either. They
also told us that if we helped her take care of the puppies since she is so young, had so many, and was having trouble breathing, that that should
really help, this neither has seemed to help. The puppies are 5 1/2 weeks old and we have pretty much separated her from them and she still pants really hard during the day, after doing nothing, and wakes me up 2 or 3 times at night panting really hard. I get up and wipe her down with a cool washrag, give her ice water, and put her in front of the fan. She seems to get better after a
half an hour or so, but it keeps happening again the next day, the next night, and so on. It is Really scaring and worrying me. She was fine before she got pregnant, she Never had this problem at all. Could you Please give me
some insight into this problem and help me figure
out what could possibly be wrong with her and what
I can do about it? It would be appreciated very, very much! Please Help! Thanks and have a great day!:)
   Debbie  

Answer
Hello Debbie,

I would recommend chest and abdominal x-rays to see what is going on.  If she is not on heartworm prevention, have her tested.  She may be brewing a uterine infection (or there may be a puppy or placenta retained) leading to fever and panting.  I would also recheck her white blood cell count, if still elevated, then she needs stronger antibiotics.  I would not breed her again and recommend having her spayed as this problem is likely to occur again after birth.

Good luck,
Dr. Fry