My week of firsts ! - Page 1

The past week - 10 days I have had

1. First ever litter of 12 puppies
2. First time ever to lose 5 puppies from one litter
3. First ever caesarian.
4. First singleton litter.

None of these I would wish on anyone..

My single puppy, born by caesarian on Wednesday  is at risk of one more belly wash and her navel would be on her chin lol. ..........
Not only that but mums milk supply is not yet kicking in and every time the baby even squeaks means another tongue bath meaning that she was constantly being knocked of the nipple she is working on and she is starting to lose weight..
Any how this morning I thought that I should start supplementing her feeds and she is definately happier now ,puppy has taken 2 bottle feeds of goat milk, egg yolk & whole milk Greek yogurt  this am,
and she is now doing what a healthy puppy should do eat, poop and sleep and all taken care of within a few minutes.

It must be sooo difficult being an only child.

Now I am wondering if I should ....... a. return her back to her mum later today or ........... b. continue with bottle feeds and let mum clean up, Yes I am sure that mum will settle down in a day or so BUT......

I really hate to see my bitch being so stressed but I most of all I want this puppy to survive and the bitch is just stressing the puppy way too much with the constant cleaning.

When I had to suppliment feed Rose's litter, I would feed and immediately gave them back to mom.  My thought is that feeding is vital bonding time and it was more important for the puppies to bond with mom than with me the first week.  As I was taking away some of that bonding by had feeding, I wanted to insure I gave it back to mom as quick as possible.  --------- Talk to your vet about what to look for if bath time is doing harm.  Most can guide you without an office visit.

I would also be concerned about mom's milk supply.  It should not have taken this much time.

boy, that is a rough week for you :( 

The bitch with the singleton, is this her first litter?  

The bitch with the 7 remaining pups (I'm assuming she had 12 and lost 5) how is she doing with them?   

I would consider taking 2 pups from the 7 pup litter and fostering them with the singleton and it's mom OR putting the singleton with the litter of 7, if you think one of the moms will accept them.  
I find a good way to initiate fostering is to put the foster pups with the dam's pup(s) and some of her fur in a box together for an hour or so, away from the dam.  Let the foster pups absorb her smells and the dam be eager to get her pup back and typically eager for the new pups too.  Present the foster pups to the dam first, hold them in your hand and let her sniff them, present their rear end to her and see if she'll clean them...if all is going well at this point, put the pup by her belly and immediately present her with the next pup.  Carefully observe them for an hour to make sure she is accepting them.  
If you do this with the singleton's dam, then having more nursing pups on her should help her bring in her milk, you can also give a small amount raspberry leaf supplement to  help bring in the milk (may want to check with vet on this, since she had a c-section,) the formula you bottlefed the pup on would be good to give to the dam to, to help with her milk.   You may need to continue bottlefeeding for a day or two, but that milk should be coming in after day two.  If it's not coming in, then you'll just have to bottlefeed.  With more pups to take care of, the bitch won't stress the pup so much, normally the dam settles down a day or two after birth anyways.   I suspect her milk isn't coming in well because she didn't go through the normal labor process, and in the normal labor process there are hormones released that kick-start that milk production.  

I'm only suggesting the fostering method because it can be very difficult to handraise a pup, especially a singleton because it really needs a lot of physical contact with another being outside of just feeding and cleaning.  

I hope everything goes well from here on! 

Thank you :)

The bitch with the singleton this is her 4th and probably her final litter, her last was 2 years ago, she is a very large female, perfect brood bitch in size and conformation, her previous litters were 8, 8, 9,8 so it was a great surprise this time to only have 1 but we knew 2 weeks prior to whelping through ultrasound.

Blaze with just having the single puppy was allowed to go 65 days just to see if she would have it naturally  but unfortunately she didn't, the hormones didn't kick in, as for her milk she is on Fenugreek for that. Both Bella and Blaze have been having the goat milk shakes for a few weeks now, I can buy the fresh frozen Goat milk locally and always have a good supply when I have bitches in whelp.
I have just weighed the singleton and after dropping almost 30gms since birth (at 625gms) she is back on track after just 3 bottles at 624gms.
My first thoughts were to give Blaze a puppy from Bella's litter but after lots of deliberation I decided not to but I might rethink that.
Bella has done a great job with her litter and they are all over  the 1kg now so that can't happen she might get trampled y the stampede when the milkbar is open:)

I would much prefer the pup to be with it's mum .....If at all possible

It is 8 years since I bred my first litter and this is the very first time I had 2 litters planned, just 2 medium litters would have been nice

Or put singleton pup with the 7 puppies for the experienced mom to give her a nipple, C-section bitch may not have enough milk due to C-section surgery and maybe she is going to be a mom that just does not have milk come in at all.  Here is what I would give both mama's;  any type broth, chicken broth or beef broth, add a egg yolk and some yogart and let each mama dog lap this extra liquid 4 times per day until all have milk flowing.

I would keep supplementing singleton with goats milk until she does not want to take any more then put her on her maternal mama then surrigate mama dog some also to be sure she gets enough to eat;  in fact it would not hurt to supplement all with the goats milk formula;  just go down the line after they eat of f mama dog and be sure they are full;  say maybe 3-4 times per day and let all of them get a little extra.

Stressful times but it does take C-section mama's a little longer to settle in.  Good luck   Nan

just be careful you need to make the decision soon as to letting the puppy nurse from one or the other mother. we lost 4 of a 12 puppy litter because we had one female have 2 puppys and a new mom had 12  the experenced mom with the two had tons of milk so we put half the litter on her and left the rest on their mom once she settled in 4 puppys where put back with their mother and they all died they bloated because they could not digest the milk according to the repro vet each bitch has their own bacteria in their milk and according to him thats what happend. this was not my litter nor my decisions but i watched what happend and it was horrifing and i wish we could have caught the puppys sooner to save them.

Well, I just had the baby with mum for about 1 hour left them together but I was watchful, mum was not as way over the top with her cleaning, she Knew that I was watching, baby fed a number of times ... Not sure whether she was getting any milk or not but she has regress to the way she was this morning ( lethargic and weight loss). Mum is on Amoxyclav 500 since surgery, maybe her milk is toxic to the baby any way NOT trying that again.

I am happy to bottle feed ( Don't require lots of sleep )

LOL, That is why they invented energy drinks and caffine.



CAFFINE IS NOT AT DRUG, IT IS A REQUIRED VITAMIN.    SLEEP IS FOR SISSIES.     WHAT?  YOU WANT TO SLEEP YOUR LIFE AWAY?


Good luck.  This will actually give the puppy 1 leg up to bonding with humans.

Thanks Fawn, I want an IV Caffine hit.

No it's not really that bad, I fed her last night at 11.30pm and she didn't wake me until about 4am ___ GOOD GIRL FOR MUMMY.

Thought I should share a photo,  her litter was to be names starting with P so I am calling her Precious.