| Tail docking
A lot of the things I do or don't do is a result of having worked ob-labor. delivery, postpartum, and new born nursery, as well as newborn intensive nursery for many years. Many years ago a newborn human male would be delivered by an obstetrician, who would also care for the newborn. Much of the time the baby would be circumcised the day of delivery because of the physician's time constraints. However, after much research, it was shown that the process of being born was enough stress for the first day. The stress of having circumcision was delayed for a time (days) until the newborn was more able to cope with it. So I applied the same principle to my pups; however, if a newly born pup is stressed by not eating well, and all of the stresses of not being a well puppy, I delay this for for several more days. The only 2 pups that I had born who were under 2 ounces did not thrive and were not unstressed enough to go ahead with the tail docking and removal of dew claws and ultimately died. (I really hate to do tail docking and dew claw removal and so have to really psych myself up to do it, if you know what I mean. I appreciate your reply and the fact of using weight as a criteria for these procedures is another good way to decide when to do them.
Thanks,
njgiger |