Puppy Care: 7 Tips for Breeders

Smart puppy care will pay for itself over an over again.  Here I will share 7 breeding management tips you can routinely use to prevent the death of newborn and young puppies.

It’s downright heartbreaking when you get your hoped-for litter and get through the woods of the whelping, only to have puppies start dying on you.  You feel so helpless!  It’s one of the most common problems my breeders reach out to me for.  And the good news is that losing suckling puppies is often very simple to prevent.

So why do puppies die?

Obviously, for all sorts of reasons.  To sort out an answer, it helps to look at the age at which the babies are passing away.

Smart puppy care begins at birth.  Birth is a pretty stressful process for puppies, as with any animal.  Things get squashed and squeezed.  The biggest cause here of dying puppies is normally associated with lack of oxygen.  Until they take their first breath, puppies rely on their mother for oxygen, delivered via the umbilical cord.  During passage through the birth canal pressure on the cord can obstruct this life-giving flow, especially if it’s a tight fit.

Breech births where the hind feet present first, rather than the head, further delay the puppy’s access to breathable air.

Puppies deprived of oxygen during the birth process will often be born limp and seemingly lifeless, or, of course, dead.

What to do to speed passage through the birth canal:

Puppy Care Tip 1.Fire-up a sluggish birth process.

The birth process can appear to stall half-way in some bitches, putting at risk the survival of the unborn puppies.   This is most likely in bitches who are experiencing a calcium metabolism issue at the time.   If there is a delay of more than 2 hours since the birth of the last pup, giving oral calcium often fires things up again.  The best way to give it is in a liquid form especially formulated for bitches.  Failing that, ordinary calcium supplements intended for humans also work if you grind them up in a spoonful of water and syringe them down her throat.   It’s not possible to overdose on oral calcium.  For my 20 lb (10kg) bitches I give at least 2000 mg (e.g 3 to 4 human tablets).  If this is the problem expect to see the whelping process resume within 40 minutes.  Of course there is also the option of using oxytocin, but this is more dangerous, and best handled by a veterinarian. I find calcium normally does the trick without resorting to oxytocin.  But if it doesn’t, or you are concerned for any reason, seek advice from your veterinarian.

Another often effective way to get a stalled whelping going again is to make the bitch go out for a walk.  Even just getting her to walk up and down a steep incline a few times can realign a mal-presented pup for a successful birth.  For similar reasons many breeders find the wheelbarrow procedure works:  you simply (gently) grasp and lift up both her back legs and get her to walk this way (like a wheelbarrow) for a minute or so.  Gravity does the work of dragging the pup away from the birth canal with the chance for it to present properly once she’s back on four legs again. 

Puppy Care Tip 2. Assist the delivery of the puppy.

Liberally lubricate around the puppy and the vulva with a suitable lube such as KY Jelly.  Grasp both limbs of the puppy firmly but gently.  During the next contraction apply steady downward (toward the bitch’s hocks) pressure.

Puppy Care Tip 3. Ensure newborn access to oxygen.

Once their head is clear of the birth canal, you want those puppies to be breathing as soon as possible.  Do not clamp and cut the umbilical cord until the pup is breathing properly, as it may still be relying on it.  Newborn puppies can have their access to oxygen stymied by excessive mucus in their mouth and nose, or the birth sac.  So watch the birth carefully.

Puppies born with intact birth sacs will need it to be ripped off their heads immediately.  If the mom isn’t fast onto it, you will end up with dying puppies if you don’t hop to it yourself.  I just get in there and use my fingernails.  (If there is Canine Brucellosis in your country, please use gloves to protect yourself and practice good hygeine.)

Puppy Care Tip 4. Stimulate sluggish newborns.

Stimulate sluggish newborns with a rough hand towel by rubbing them over their body.

Wipe the nose and mouth of newborns with a clean hand towel to remove excessive mucus.  Bulb aspirators are also a great tool for this job.  Another way to get that mucus out, is by grasping the puppy (being sure to support the head and neck as well as the body) within a towel, between your 2 hands, with the head facing your finger tips, and swinging it rapidly from high to down between your legs.  Alternate by rubbing it.  You can even make a funnel of your hand to gently blow air into the puppy’s lungs every 10 seconds or so.

Another means of stimulating puppies is by using acupuncture.  There is an acupressure point on the septum (midline) of the nose, between the top of the nose and upper lip.  A needle inserted there a short way and wiggled can work to revive a puppy and get it breathing again.

What about dying puppies occurring during the early weeks of life?

Puppy Care Tip 5. Prevent fading puppies.

Then there are puppies that seem hale and hearty at birth but fail to gain weight and thrive.  Such sick puppies may be reasonably lively and even occasionally feed successfully, but gradually deteriorate and eventually die.  When only one puppy is affected it may be due to some inherent defect in that puppy.  However when several (or even all) in a litter are affected, the problem is likely to be “Fading Puppy Syndrome”.

The jury is out about what causes FPS.  However, there are indications that it is linked to lack of good gut microbes.  So as a routine I recommend that all breeders give every newborn puppy a dose of live probiotics within the first day or two of birth.  I just use a half teaspoon of natural yoghurt containing live cultures.  You could also use puppy (or human infant) probiotics if you prefer.

Puppy Care Tip 6. When puppies that seem healthy are found dead.

The litter is going along fine.  The puppies are chubby and steadily gaining weight.  Then you wake up one morning and find one dead.  The next day, the same thing happens again.  And then again.  Apparently healthy puppies dying like this can decimate a litter.  What is going on?

Bitches often lie on puppies, which all too often smothers and kill them.  Particularly when they are too small and weak for her to notice, or when she is super-tired after a long whelping or has a large litter to deal with.  And let’s face it.  Some bitches just aren’t as careful in this department as others.  So, what can you do?

Well, I routinely spend the first few nights on the couch next to my newly whelped bitch with an alarm on to wake me every hour or so to check the pups aren’t trapped under her.  And regularly check during the day too.  That helps with the bitch tiredness or lack of experience factor.

But one mistake that I see many breeders make that costs them heavily in dying puppies is to overheat the whelping box.  It’s understandable and hey, vital, during cold weather to want to keep those babies nice and warm.  But you can easily overdo it and unwittingly cause the death of your puppies. The exact right amount of heating is warm enough to be cosy, but cool enough that the puppies still clump together in a little pile to conserve their heat.  A clumped little pile of puppies is easy for their mom to lay next to.  Over-warmed puppies on the other hand tend to spread out in the whelping box.  Their poor mom has a really hard time finding a safe puppy-free space to lie down.  As a result she is a lot more likely to lie on and kill her babies, one after the other.  So heat carefully, and if the pups are spreading out, pull the heat back a bit until they’re clumping.

Another frequent fix for the problem of mom lying on her babies is to get her into a bigger whelping box.  I’ve found that switching to a whelping box that is only slightly larger can make a surprisingly big difference.

Puppy Care Tip 7. Routine management for whelping large litters.

My last tip to prevent dying puppies is to set up a warm brooding box for the babies at the start of whelping.  As they are born, leave just the most recent one with the bitch and transfer the older ones into the box until she has completed the whelping or is on a long break between puppies.  This helps her focus on the newest baby so it gets all the licking and stimulation it needs from her to get breathing.  It also helps avoid the bitch becoming overwhelmed by the delivery and accidentally lying on pups.

So that’s my puppy care tips on preventing dying puppies.  Hope you found it useful and it helps you to preserve your precious babies.

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