6 months old and pregnant

Question
I'm extremely worried about my aunt's 6 month old female Pit being pregnant. I'm exhausting all of my resources in educating myself as much as possible to handle this situation. I understand that seeing a vet may be a necessity as mentioned above, but my aunt's money situation is not the greatest and I'm just looking for as many answers or information I can get to help us through this difficult time. I need general information on what type of problems to expect and solutions. Thank you for your time.

Answer
Hi Stacey. I applaud your efforts, however, you have to know that many problems that come up will require a vet's help. Especially in a dog this young. This best thing that you can do for this girl is to get her to the vet now for a check up to make sure that she's healthy enough to carry this litter. Has your aunt thought about aborting this litter? It may cost, but it may also be a lot cheaper to do this than to have to pay for a possible c-section, milk for the puppies if mom can't produce any or dies during whelping, worming for the puppies, food, shots, ect. This is just one option. If she's to have this litter, then you have to prepare yourself for anything that could go wrong. Make sure that she gets plenty of exercise, don't let her get too fat. A fat mom and pups can cause problems with whelping. I would get everything together that you may need during whelping: a whelping box, something that can keep the pups warm (I use empty two liter bottles filled with warm water wrapped in a towel, or a tube sock filled with rice microwaved. Others use heating pads, lights.), plenty of clean towels to dry the pups off after birth, old clean blankets that can be put down in the whelping box after pups are born (newsparer isn't good for the pups), dental floss to tie off cords, iodine for cord care, I'll give you a link for other supplies. This is all you really can do for mom during pregnancy, keep her fit, on a good dog food, and watch for signs of problems. If she has a colored discharge before the birth of the first puppy, get her to the vet. If she pushes for longer than 15 minutes, of more than three hours goes inbetween puppies, get her to the vet. I would have a supply of baby bottles and puppy milk on hand just in case mom doesn't have milk, or doesn't want anything to do with her pups, this is common with first time moms or moms that are really young and don't know what to do. You may have to take care of these puppies, which means bottle feeding every three hours 24/7 for the first few weeks, and you also have to 'poop' the puppies and keep them clean. Newborns HAVE to stay warm, or they die, never feed a cold puppy. Warm it up first, and then try to feed it. I'm going to give you a couple of links. Please have a look at them and if you have anymore questions, let me know.

www.debbiejensen.com
www.geocities.com/vvvzena/boxerlinks.html