[SimonBirchNJ]

Hello everyone,

Brief history: I am a complete and utter noob when it comes to this and by no means will I breed again. Dam is 3.5 yrs old and sire is 1 yr old. First litter and first pregnancy ever for us. Natural birth and she has been a great mom to her 4 puppies. Her temperament is as calm as always, even when vet removed puppies for docking/dew-clawing (sp?). Mom received deworming (3 syringes - 1 a day at home) which caused some loose stool with very little blood (I think I saw her licking it, eww!)

Anyway, it's been a week and three days since birth and puppies are feeding fine and even the runt has gained weight and appears to be thriving. Past day or so I have noticed her sleeping outside of the bed the puppies sleep and feed in. She seems to want that "alone time". Yesterday, she grabbed the aforementioned runt (we named him Scruffles in honor of a Maury Povich episode) and moved him to the are where we sit. I encouraged it by getting her a blanket so that the puppy wouldn't be on the cold tile floor. She then proceeded to go and grab the others and bring them to the same area. This was fine for a little while but I have a special needs toddler and cannot have them in this open area unsupervised as he may inadvertently hurt them. So I put them back in their bed and she was fine. Today, again she grabbed Scruffles and placed him on the floor in our common area and nudged him a few times and rotated him as if to present him to me or the sire which was also there (am I overthinking this?). She licked him all over as she usually does but mostly in the face. She went back to check on the pups a few times but made no effort to bring any of the others out. Why do you think she's doing this? Is this just a developmental thing where she wants him to learn to start walking or something else altogether?

Thanks in advance and please ask any questions I may have left out.
-Simon