Things to Watch Out for in Nursing Bitches
Mastitis
Check the udder and nipples of your bitch regularly for mastitis. The mammary glands can become infected, requiring veterinary care. Signs to watch out for are swelling, lumpiness, and redness. The breasts will feel hot to touch and painful for the bitch. The milk may be off colored and/or clotted. She may resent the puppies suckling, and be off her food. Her body temperature may also be elevated. Prevention is best achieved by good health (diet, exercise, fresh air and water) and hygiene, ensuring the bitch’s nesting box is always clean and fresh.
Lactation Tetany
Both giving birth and lactation make heavy demands on the calcium levels of breeding bitches.
Low calcium will show up as restlessness, panting, a stiff-legged gait, and diminished coordination, and you may also see muscle spasms and possible seizures in severely affected bitches. She may also drool and stagger about. Taking your bitch for a walk every day during lactation allows you to quickly spot these signs which will become obvious after walking a few hundred meters but wont show up until things are dire if she’s just lying around. Small breed dogs are more prone to this problem.
As the pups grow and begin to drag more and more calcium out of your bitch through her milk (weeks 2 to 5) the risk of this condition increases. Once well established, milk tetany (also known as hypocalcemia, eclampsia or puerperal tetany) is an emergency situation requiring veterinary help, so stay alert and nip it in the bud at the first signs of the condition with the oral calcium gel (see dose rate and source on page 98) so you can avoid this potentially lethal condition.
Most veterinarians will give a small, gradual injection of calcium gluconate into the bloodstream to remedy the problem. They have to be very cautious, however, as it is very easy to give too much, causing the heart to slow down and even stop fatally! I have known bitches to die from calcium injections administered in excess by experienced veterinarians.
The Calcoral Gel oral calcium supplement doesn’t present this dangerous problem and is absorbed almost as quickly as the injectable, so can be given in small, frequent amounts until the bitch recovers (e.g. give a 10 – 15 kg bitch a teaspoon [667 mg of calcium] by mouth every few hours for 1 to 3 doses until she returns to normal). This safe, easy treatment can be repeated every week or so throughout the lactation without harm every time the signs of lactation tetany are evident. However, if such treatment does not quickly restore the bitch’s condition, seek immediate veterinary advice, as she may be suffering from some other condition (e.g. infection for example).
Never be tempted to provide heavy calcium supplementation to your bitch during pregnancy in the hopes of preventing tetany because – paradoxically – it can actually lead to hypocalcemia. The reason is that the calcium metabolism in the body is finely balanced by hormones that control its harvesting or depositing into the bones, depending on supply and demand. If you over-supply calcium when there is only moderate demand, the body switches off levels of the hormones that harvest calcium. When the heavy demands of lactation then come in after the pregnancy, the bitch is less able to access her stores of calcium and may then suffer worse tetany than if you did not supplement.
The best precautions are to
- Ensure your dog gets a good supply of calcium and other essential minerals in its normal ration from raw meaty bones (e.g. several meals of chicken necks a week).
- Supplement your bitch with a higher calcium ration AFTER she has given birth to match the demand from the pups if she has a history of eclampsia (I supplement mine with free access to a commercial puppy biscuit as a background feed to her normal raw meaty bone based diet, as these are high in calcium).
- Supplement feed the pups from 3 ½ to 4 weeks of age to reduce the demands on the bitch, especially if she has a large litter. I start mine off with a gruel of mixed milk, warm wheat biscuits or farex and a little commercial tinned puppy food or finely minced raw meat. When I know they will be hungry (say 4 hours since they fed off their Mom) I plant the puppy’s paws around a large shallow dish and use a plastic teaspoon to scoop a little of the mixture into their mouths and give them a taste. Once they get the taste and overcome their fear of the situation, their nose will avidly follow the spoon down into the dish. This way they will all learn to eat from the dish within a day or two or coaching.
Wean your pups early by gradually (start in week 4 and finish by week 6) reducing the time they have access to their Mom, and providing them with meals. I give milky meals (as above) alternated with commercial puppy food, leftovers, minced meat, and ground chicken carcasses with rice.
Feeding the Lactating Bitch
Feeding and caring for a healthy litter of puppies makes a heavy demand on the reserves of the bitch. In their natural state, the ancestors of the dog handled these demands in a very specific way: only the ‘alpha’ or top bitch and dog in a pack were allowed to mate and reproduce. It was the duty of every other dog in the pack to provide for the needs of the whelping ‘alpha’ bitch. Only in this way would the survival of her progeny be assured, and the strongest genes in the pack
preserved and passed on.
Though domestic dogs no longer observe these breeding restrictions, the raising of a litter is no less taxing. Your breeding bitch is a production animal demanding knowledgeable and careful management. To do otherwise is to invite disaster.
A bitch’s dietary requirements during lactation grow as the puppies grow, peaking until when they are 3 to 4 weeks of age and begin to adapt to alternative nourishment from meals that you provide them. At the peak, her daily food needs can be 3 to 4 times that of when she is neither pregnant nor lactating. At about this time she will also start to reject their demands to suckle, signaling that you must step up efforts to wean them over to being fed by you.
Lactation also robs her body of fluids, so she will also need plenty of access to fresh water. To protect her from losing condition, you need to feed her an energy and nutrient dense ration with plenty of fat and protein as well as carbohydrate to maintain her energy levels. I manage this by doubling her normal dietary ration (see “The healthy dog diet” section) plus offering unlimited access to a commercial puppy kibble and, of course, fresh water.
Worm your lactating bitch with a roundworm-effective wormer when her pups are 2 and 4 weeks old, at the same time as her pups.
