What to feed while preggers, and any additional advice
 

As some of you might know...Bella is preggers and is due on or about Dec.13. I was just wondering if I should start feeding her anything different to help her body cope with the pregnancy. I have started feeding her a high quality puppy food mixed with a little cottage cheese(cottage cheese only once a day and a tbsp) Is there anything else i could be doing for her? Thanks in advance for your advice! this is her first litter and mine also so any advice would be greatly appreciated! i have bought like 5 books on dog breeding and small breed whelping to educate myself and be prepared!

If you have already switched her to puppy food, that is good. I usually wait a bit closer to the due date to start the calcium supplements, but that is just MY preference based on advice I’ve gotten over time. Your vet may want you to start her on an oral antibiotic just prior to her whelp date. I know some breeders do this, some don’t—there is evidence of the pros/cons on both sides. Research that so you can make an educated decision regarding that when the time comes.
The only other advice I can give you is to try to make sure you have an experienced breeder or vet that will be ‘on call’ during the whelp, given your inexperience in breeding and her young age. Some dogs, particularly when they are young like Bella, have more difficulty with acting ‘maternal’ including during delivery. Make sure that you know how to recognize the warning signs of problematic delivery and possibly mom’s disinterest in her babies. Not to say that it will happen, but it does on occasion and you will have little time to act with newborn pups if it does. You will need to make plans for either yourself, or someone who can assist with the whelp, to be with her 24/7 when her due date approaches and for several days after the pups are born—pretty much plan to be by her side for a week solid. Around day 50, you will need to plan to have an ultrasound/x-ray done—this will let the vet judge the size of the pups and will give a heads up if the pups look too big to deliver and give time to plan a c-section. (A planned section is better than an emergency-in-the-middle-of-troubled-delivery section.)

thanks for your advice! it is really helpful! i am my sister and ultrasound tech. do a sonogram of bella for me around thanksgiving so we know how many pups to expect. I will also be home 24/7 around her whelp date and so will my mom so between the two of us she will be watched like a hawk! haha anyway thanks!

Sounds like you all are preparing the best you can.:thumbup: Better to plan for the worst and be relieved than hope for the best and get yourself in trouble, IMO. :)

Good luck and keep us posted.

My breeding dogs stay on Puppy food all the time. i, like Misty, don't start with the cottage cheese until the last week or so. Depending on how many babies are in there, sometimes I don't start till after they whelp. I have found all the info on www.debbiejensen.com a great help. There are lots of step by step pictures as well. Congratulations.