[Mardelin]

Feeding the Puppy
Lots of times we have one or more of the puppies in a litter that need help during the first week. Right here is where we say, as clearly as possible, if you can't be available to help your bitch and your puppies at this time, you don't deserve to have those puppies.

We breed our bitches for our own satisfaction. Some of us think we'll get rich. Some of us are breeding so our friends and relatives can have a puppy - big surprise if any of them still want one, once they're born. Some want to put their bitch through this so their kids can experience the 'Miracle of Birth'. And some of us are breeding to produce champions and other title holders to the greater glory of ourselves and our kennels.

The one thing we can guarantee is that none of us is breeding our bitch so that she can have the pleasure of seeing her kids grow up, go to college, get married, and have grandchildren. We are using our bitches. We can only justify asking them to go through a pregnancy, whelp the litter, nurse the puppies and then give them up, if we are there to lend our loving support, care and any assistance we can give them in their efforts to do as we wish.

This absolutely and unequivocally means that we must be present 24 hours a day; physically present in the very same room with the bitch and the puppies, sleeping on the floor next to her, for at least the first 4 days after she whelps. Since Every Puppy Is A Best In Show Puppy until proven otherwise, this is in our best interest as well as hers.

Puppies must get colostrum from their mothers to have full immunity to germs and diseases they will encounter in their first weeks. We used to say this had to occur in the first 48 hours. Now we know it is only during, at most, the first 12 hours, and more likely the first 2 hours of their lives that this transfer of immunity is possible. I've heard people say that they are going to let their puppies nurse longer before weaning because they will be protected from infection as long as they are nursing. WRONG. The transfer of colostral antibodies occurs only until the puppy's intestine develops the ability to screen out large molecules . This change in the intestine occurs very quickly, in the first few hours of life.

If a puppy is not nursing strongly, for what ever reason, we must strip some milk from the bitch and feed it to the puppy drop by drop from a syringe or dropper, so they will have the colostral antibodies.

There are many reasons why puppies may not get much to eat in the first 48 hours. A partial list includes:
Weak puppies
Slow developing puppies
Puppies born by C-Section
Poor milk let down in the dam
Poor appetite in the dam
Insufficient drinking by the dam
Fever in the dam



These puppies must have our help. In addition, large litters should be supplemented so that the drain on the bitch is not excessive and does not damage her long term or short term health. Additionally, helping the bitch with a large litter by supplementary feeding of the puppies, helps to prevent eclampsia (hypocalcemia) in the bitch. Eclampsia is always a worry when a bitch has a large litter, anywhere from 2 or 3 weeks before whelping to 2 or 3 weeks after whelping.