whelping golden retriever

Question
My golden retriever has had 3 litters in the past, this is her fourth. She had her first puppy about 2 1/2 hours ago, and she's doing fine. But I know there's more puppies in there as Mom is quite large. Right now they are both just resting, no contractions or struggling at all. Is this normal? She normally has fairly fast births, but theres always been a bit of a break between the first and subsequent puppies. Should I be worried about her and is there anything else I can do for her? She was moved to new quarters this morning as her 'comfortable' ones were outside and the weather turned rather nasty, could this be affecting delivery at all?

Answer
Hi Rebecca. If she goes past three hours between pups, you may want to call the vet. Because of the amount of litters she's had, her uterus may be kind of lax, causing her to have a slow labor. You may want to trot her outside to get her to potty. Sometimes this helps labor to kick start again. She may need to be taken to the vet for a shot to get her labor going again if it doesn't start soon. That's the best thing that you can do for her for now. There is a technique that you can use to get her going, it's called feathering. However, if you don't know what you're doing, you can really hurt mom or the pups. So, I suggest that you try to walk her around for a bit to see how that works. It nothing happens, call the vet, don't waist any time. I hope that everything's ok. Please let me know if I can help with anything else.