Late last December, we bred our two standard poodles.
Annie was the perfect little pregant girl. She remained healthy throughout the pregnancy. Gunner didn't understand why she wouldn't play with him as roughly as she always has but they adapted.
So we were expecting our little bundles of joy around February 17th.
We did all sorts of research. Had emergency numbers for our vets. Knew what to watch for. We had organized her whelping bed. We were ready with the surgical gloves, clean towels, dental floss and scissors. Ok, let me clarify one point - I was ready with all these things. T was manning the phone, ready to call the vet at a moment's notice.
So, on February 12th, the dogs wanted to go outside. I put them out. They began pawing at the door after about 10 minutes so I went to let them in. Imagine my surprise when I opened up the door and saw 2 puppies laying there. One wiggling around and the other not out of the amniotic sac. My normally calm, cool and collected demeanor went straight out the window. There had been no signs at all that she would be having puppies today but there they were.
I yelled back through the house at T - "We have puppies." I'm fairly certain she heard the panic in my voice because she came running back through the house, saying, "What?"
"We have puppies... I need towels!" I was already running to the bathroom. Well, we were in the wrong part of the house. I grabbed the first thing I could find which happened to be my favorite WHITE bathrobe. I scooped up the puppies. T had made it back with towels by this time. I handed her the one that was moving around telling her to rub it roughly. I went to work on the one who was still in the sac. I cleared its face so it could breathe but it wasn't breathing. I rubbed and rubbed and finally, it took a breath. I was never so relieved in my life. 
So I continued to hold on to it and rub until the sac was gone. Annie was running around completely panicked by this time. I tied and cut the umbilical cord on the one I had. Traded T and told her to keep rubbing this little guy. Took the one she had, tied and cut the cord and put it in the whelping bed. He was a feisty little guy. He was all over the whelping box whining and looking for his momma.
Annie was running around with that, "WTF just happened" look on her face. She went under the dining room table and had another pup, and after cleaning him, she just walked off. I grabbed him, tied his cord and cut it, finished cleaning him up and took him over to join the other little one in the whelping bed. Then I heard another cry under the table. She'd apparently had another one while I was taking care of this one. She didn't clean him up though. So I grabbed him and tore away the membrane and started cleaning him up.
Of course, we were panicked so she would have NOTHING to do with the pups at first. I'd bring one over to her and she'd literally RUN from it. Finally, I wised up and calmed down. I brought one of the pups over to her and started talking soothingly and she let him nurse.I brought the others over and all has been well since.
