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Originally Posted by bjh  I am glad everyone is doing better. Did you dock the tails yourself. Honestly you should have done the dewclaws at the same time. I would recommend having the dewclaws removed but I would not wait past tomorrow to have it done.
It is not unusually for the mom to make a nest for the babies. For my whelping box I use a bottomless wooden box that my husband made and I sit the box on top of the bedding so the mom can't dig and accidentally bury a pup in the bedding. I put a small fleece blanket in the whelping box so the mom can cover them with that if she chooses to.
As the pups get older they will eat less often and the mom will spend more time away from them. When the pups are old enough to start walking you will need to make it where the mom can come and go from the pen the pups are in. I use a board to divide the x-pen so mom can just jump over the board to get to her pups when she wants to. |
Yes, I did the tails myself. My breeder is still unavailable. I chickened out of the dewclaws. I don't think my clamp is small enough to get in behind the joint. I've heard some do it with a nail clipper? What's your method?
Ok, I won't panic about the digging. She's not digging all the way down to the bottom bedding, she's digging up the fleece blanket on top. I had a different blanket there, it was more of a cross between a towel and a rug. I removed that and put the fleece in thinking maybe she didn't like that other one. Then she started digging the fleece as well. I'm going to check to see if I have a smaller size one too. I just get scared because I've read so much about so many things and all the stuff that can go wrong. Somewhere I read that when there's something wrong with a puppy, the mom will push them aside and turn her back on the pup…so…I'm so thankful I have some experienced people to ask questions to when I start to panic
Thank you all for your responses!
Time to start thinking about what I'll need next. Thanks for the idea of the board to separate the pen. I'm sure momma will need a mommy break once in a while