Episode 24: Live "Ask our Advisors" Series: First Week of Neonatal Care (Part 1)

Listen to the first part of the Q&A session hosted by former Good Dog Advisors Dr. Gayle Watkins, Laura Reeves, and Susan Patterson! They answer your questions about the first week of neonatal care!

Dr. Gayle Watkins, PhD: Gayle is the founder of Avidog and a renowned Golden Retriever breeder. She is an AKC Gold Breeder of Merit, a three-time recipient of AKC Breeder of the Year and the holder of over 150 championships and titles.

Laura Reeves: Laura is the host of Pure Dog Talk and The Good Dog Pod. She is an AKC Breeder of Merit and renowned German Wirehaired Pointer breeder, AKC Judge, and a retired zone representative for the Professional Handler Association.

Susan Patterson: Susan is the author of the advice column Straight from the Whelping Box and is a renowned Labrador Retriever breeder. She is a Director of The Labrador Retriever Club of the Potomac, Westminster Best of Breed winner (2005) and AKC Breeder of Merit, producing both conformation champions and field champions, with nearly 40 years of breeding experience.

Transcript

Laura Reeves [0:40] Welcome, everyone! I see everybody joining us here. This is our first inaugural, first ever (we’re super excited) live iteration of The Good Dog Pod! I am your host, Laura Reeves. We have an amazing crew, Dr. Judi Stella, who is our Good Dog Head of—

Cat Matloub [1:06] Health, Standards, and Research!

Laura Reeves [1:10] Health, Standards, and Research! It’s the only one I didn’t write down! She’s going to be handling all of our questions. We’re going to get comments from the peanut gallery, and we’re going to have a really good time with this. So, welcome, one and all, as you are all joining us. Our panelists tonight are myself, Susan Patterson (who is the author of the “Straight From the Whelping Box” column on the Good Dog page), and we also have Gayle Watkins (another one fo our breeder advisors who is, of course, Avidog. You guys should all know Dr. Gayle). We are going to be talking about the first week of our baby puppies. I am, of course, the host of the Pure Dog Talk and Good Dog Pod podcasts. I am a breeder for my whole life, starting with my parents’ first field trial Lab in the ’70s and moving on till today: I am a breeder of merit of German Wirehaired Pointers and, oddly enough, Clumber Spaniels also. I am a retired professional handler, a member of the Professional Handlers Association, and I am now an AKC judge. I love me some baby puppies, and I’m hoping we’ll be able to help you guys answer some questions. Speaking of questions, before I let Gayle and Susan talk, this is a brand-new format. We’re going to try and do this on the fly, so y’all bear with us! If you’re going to ask a question, which is what we want you to do, click the Q&A box. There should be a graphic that you’ve been emailed. But there’s a Q&A box there at the bottom. Type in your question and hit “send.” We, the panelists, are the only ones who will be able to see your question, and Dr. Judi will be actually selecting the questions. When she picks you, she will tell you that you’ve been picked, and then they will unmute you so that you can actually ask your question live on the podcast! So, if you would like to be on air on The Good Dog Pod, now is your time! Next up: Susan, give us your bio, honey!

Susan Patterson [3:30] I got into dogs, wanted to be a vet so bad and was so allergic to animals it wasn’t funny. And I think I probably had as much Sudafed and Benadryl as anybody would have me, and I still did dogs and still did horses. About seven years ago, having gotten into breeding, I started a Facebook group, which was supposed to be like 100 of my friends, and we were just going to chat. The next thing I knew, I had 17,000 people and at this old age, I was an influencer. I was like, whoa. Through all this, I met Gayle and we tried to figure out how to work together, and the best thing that happened to us was Good Dog. It gave us the opportunity to work together to help breeders and wannabe breeders and owners really be the best that they could be. Taking my 40 years of experience and my champion on the conformation side, I’ve also put other titles on the dog (rally and hunting titles)—how do I help others come to be really good breeders? And that’s how I ended up here with Laura on a podcast of all things. 

Laura Reeves [4:47] And we’re going to have a great time! Gayle—I met Gayle because she came on Pure Dog Talk! I’ve loved her work. She absolutely fundamentally changed a number of my breeding practices, and I’ve been doing this a very long time. So you guys are really lucky. I’m just saying. Gayle, give us your 411, honey.

Dr. Gayle Watkins [5:09] Oh my gosh. So, I’ve been doing dogs a long time: 40+ years. I was one of the few people to get into dogs knowing I wanted to breed dogs and knowing I wanted to breed show dogs from the very start. I, at the same time, had a career as an army officer and served as a variety of things in the army but ended up as a professor at West Point, the military academy. I have a really strong educational bent when I think about dog breeding as well. So I’ve done the dog breeding side. I’m a Gold breeder of merit, three-time Breeder of the Year for the AKC. But education’s my passion. So I started Avidog eight years ago. If you’re not familiar with Avidog, we are presenting a complete breeder education program for all dog breeders, from home breeders who have only bred one litter to larger breeders who have a number of litters a year. I met Susan at a seminar and obviously Laura at Pure Dog Talk. Joined the Good Dog team three years ago now, I think—maybe even a little longer. I’ve been thrilled to be an advisor, and I’m happy to be here tonight!

Laura Reeves [6:28] Excellent. I see that we have a good number of questions already coming in. I’m super excited. Judi is going to be making the selections, and the Good Dog team is going to be unmuting you. Here’s what I’m going to ask: When you come on and you’re live and you’re talking, keep it as brief as possible, okay? If we have follow-up that we need more detail on, we will ask you. Okay? I’ve got my whip and my chair, and I’m ready to roll. Let’s have ‘em, Judi!

Dr. Judi Stella [7:00] Gail is first up. Going to unmute you, and go ahead and ask your question to the panel. 

Gail Tighe [7:07] Hi, I have Australian Labradoodles, and it appears that the Labradoodles have a calcium issue when puppies are born. The other breeders scared me half to death and said you have to have the calcium that you shoot in their mouth and they’ll go crazy and eat your puppies if they have an issue. Well, I had a bitch that was looking kind of crazy. Gave her some, and she calmed down. What is causing that? Is there a way to fix it? Do I just need to keep the calcium in the tube handy? 

Laura Reeves [7:35] Thanks so much for your question! I think we have another question actually that’s come in from Tiffany asking about calcium. I think calcium is a really, really, really important topic. I’m going to start with Gayle to answer that. I have my own thoughts, but I’m going to start with Gayle and then Susan, and we’ll just do round-robin.

Dr. Gayle Watkins [7:55] Susan and I have talked about this many times. I’m not sure I have an answer except oral calcium supplementation during and post-whelping works to stabilize the temperament of our bitches and their mental sanity—their own stability. We want them to enjoy being mothers. There is something about supplementing with oral calcium. It doesn’t have to be in the tube. You can get calcium citrate in bulk and mix it with a slurry of water or chicken stock and syringe it in. DocRoy’s healthy bones; I’m a big fan of the tablets and the powders. Those are a wonderful alternative as well. In some of our bitches, they need extraordinarily high doses of oral calcium. This is not the injectable calcium. This is just feeding it to them. Why? We don’t know. There is no research on this right now. This has been crowd-sourced through breeders, primarily through Susan’s list, where we have 17,000 breeders and veterinarians from around the world who are realizing this is a problem. Many of our GPs and even our repro vets don’t support this, because they’re not there in the whelping box watching these bitches have meltdowns, try to kill their puppies, try to bury their puppies, take their puppies outside. So I can’t tell you why it works. I can’t tell you why we’re seeing more of it. It makes me think there’s a food issue somewhere along the line, but we don’t know. But I can tell you that in my experience, it works. And it works very well to keep bitches sane and puppies safe. 

Susan Patterson [9:41] I’m going to piggyback on Gayle and say that we started seeing a lot of this, and what people used to say was, “My bitch was a bad mother. Oh my god, I can’t wait to get through this first week! I’m trying to protect my puppies because my bitch was going after them. She won’t be settled. What do I do?” We tried to figure out. Actually, the Merck manual, which is a veterinary manual, does talk about calcium. It does talk about subclinical symptoms, and that’s what this is. This is not full-blown eclampsia. This is subclinical. These are all the “my bitch isn’t settled, she’s not in the whelping box being a good mom, she’s just not herself, what do I do?” This addition of calcium makes a difference. I will tell you that I am a less-is-more kind of a girl on calcium because we have to make sure calcium needs to bind to phosphorus in order to work, so post-whelping, we must give balanced calcium. So, like Gayle said, if you’re going to give straight calcium, you need to balance it with either scrambled egg or an egg yolk, so that your bitch is not drawing the phosphorus out of her bones as well as the calcium, which will cause more problems. Our goal is to be able to give them the least amount that they need. You find that sweet spot. And then you just kind of ease it in and you say, “Okay, if I do this for two hours and I back it to three and I back it to four” until you find that sweet spot. And then we find that we’ve got another problem where after the beginning, which we’ll probably address in another podcast—just mark this on your calendar for two weeks out when the puppies have a growth spurt. But calcium is so important, and I agree with Gayle. I think people are not looking at their food for a balanced ratio. To me, the golden ratio is when you’re feeding your bitches for breeding, specifically pregnant, you want as close to a one-to-one ratio so you don’t throw your parathyroid off and don’t ask it to do things it’s not supposed to or don’t put it to sleep. That can be a significant part of it. I think we’re also talking more. That’s why we hear about it. You used to hear about bitches who killed their litters and nobody bred them again and now we know why. I won’t say we know all the reasons, but this is part of it. And if it doesn’t settle for calcium, then it is a temperament issue, and you need to react appropriately. But I think that staying on top of it is really critical, especially in that first week and again when you have a dog in C-section. That also makes a difference, because you’re balancing out your chemicals for the C-section, you’re balancing out the “oh my god, they’ve attached aliens to me while I was sleeping.” 

Dr. Gayle Watkins [12:46] “And that are eating me! That are biting me!” 

Laura Reeves [12:51] “And I already have an owie right here!” I had to hand-raise a litter for that very reason, because the Wirehair was very sure that those all needed to die. I’m going to agree with both Susan and Gayle. This is something that I’m relatively new to. It was shocking—and I mean shocking—to me, the difference between before I supplemented calcium and after I supplemented calcium. I’m absolutely in agreement on calcium post-whelp (don’t give it to them before they’ve had their first puppy—important!). Larissa asked about the one-to-one calcium to phosphorus ratio—Susan just addressed that. TUMS as a daily calcium supplement after whelping? 

Dr. Gayle Watkins [13:33] No! No! No! 

Laura Reeves [13:35] Susan’s shaking her head. 

Dr. Gayle Watkins [13:39] There’s multiple forms of calcium. TUMS is calcium carbonate. Calcium carbonate requires food. There’s a very small amount of that calcium that’s actually active and absorbed by the body, and the bitch must eat if she’s using TUMS. It has no phosphorus in it either, so as Susan said, we want to be looking at what’s known as dicalcium phosphate. It’s often the best. Or calcium citrate with something that has phosphorus in it, which is meat, eggs, etc. Calcium citrate does not require food and is very rapidly absorbed but no phosphorus, and so that should be your emergency back-up. If the bitch completely crashes, use calcium citrate. For your regular supplementation during the day, I recommend dicalcium phosphate. You can look at the ingredients on the back of the bottle. That’s what you’re looking for. Those two are my go-tos. I don’t know if, Susan, you use another one?

Susan Patterson [14:41] I think you’re right. I think the biggest thing that I would have people keep… I’m a big toolbox gal, so I want to have Calsorb, I want to have Oral Cal Plus, I want to have the paste tubes, I want to have something I can stick in the side of my girl’s mouth that I can immediately get calcium into her, if needed. I actually have an anecdotal story of a friend who had a Labrador who kept giving her TUMS, and the dog ended up having a non-related blockage after the birth, and they went in and found all these pellets of TUMS in her stomach. They had not absorbed. That reinforced, to me, that (while TUMS are great; you can crush them up, so if that’s all you’ve got, that’s what you use) I would strongly recommend that we have the tubes of Oral Cal Plus, the tubes of Calsorb in our whelping toolbox for the first week, because that’s when we generally see the problems. Like you said, Gayle, I actually buy calcium citrate powder by bulk. I mix it with Pedialyte and an egg yolk, and I have big 20 and 60 cc syringes that I use if necessary. Again, my vet and I are best friends. As a matter of fact, he owns one of my dogs. He said, “You know, it’s made a difference.” He has suggested this to other breeders. I think we really need to know that there are different forms of calcium. They react differently. Citracal calcium citrate actually starts right in the mucus membranes. You don’t have to get into the stomach for digestion, so it’s really huge. 

Dr. Gayle Watkins [16:25] We probably want to move on from calcium, but I want to give one warning: A lot of calcium supplements these days have Vitamin D in them. Be very cautious giving high doses of Vitamin D. The more you can use a canine version or a bulk calcium citrate, the safer your dog’s going to be. 

Laura Reeves [16:45] That was a good thing. Susan answered one of the questions in the chat about where do you find it. I would say a Revival. Go buy the oral calcium.

Susan Patterson [16:55] Bulk foods on Amazon. I think what I’m going to do on my next Good Dog “Straight From the Whelping Box” column—I think I need to develop a shopping list. I’ll put my head together with Gayle’s so we can find some places where people can do some things like that. I think that would be good.

Laura Reeves [17:15] Awesome. Our next question, Judi? 

Dr. Judi Stella [17:18] Yeah, Brenda Adams, you are up next! 

Brenda Adams [17:23] Good evening, all. I just had a litter of puppies on Sunday. Three boys. Two are doing well. The third boy was the smallest when he was born. He is fading. He was 11.05 ounces when he was born. He’s down to 9.9 now. Suggestions? I’ve been online reading so much. I’m not really sure what is the best way to keep him alive. 

Laura Reeves [17:45] Well, Brenda, here you have real-live actual experts, so I’m super excited you could join us. Gayle, Susan, give it a go!

Susan Patterson [17:53] What breed?

Brenda Adams [17:54] Australian Cattledog. 

Dr. Gayle Watkins [17:57] What have you done so far? 

Brenda Adams [18:00] I actually did a few things ahead of time that I hadn’t done in the past. I did buy the miracle nipples. I did buy the Nutri-Cal for puppies, I believe. I’ve been trying to supplement. He latches on, but then he seems to lose interest. I put my pinky in his mouth, and he’s got great suction. There doesn’t appear to be any cleft lip or anything or cleft palate. 

Dr. Gayle Watkins [18:23] Are you tube-feeding him? 

Brenda Adams [18:26] I don’t know how to tube-feed. 

Dr. Gayle Watkins [18:27] We can give you some great videos. Myra Savant Harris has a wonderful video on her website, on her home page. We’ll try and find the link.

Susan Patterson [18:37] Gayle, that’s actually what I was going to suggest. If you go and, into Google, put “YouTube Myra tube-feed puppies,” it will immediately bring up that video. What happens is when they try to nurse on a nipple, they expend more energy getting the nutrition than the nutrition that they get. It’s a zero-sum game. This is why tube-feeding is so important. The formulas that I have found success with are actually Myra’s formula. I modified it slightly because I wanted to have a little more fat in the formula after looking at the percentages of fat that the science says, when they looked at formulas and how they evolved—so I modified it slightly, but it’s very similar. I would strongly suggest feeding with that. I would also go with—I don’t know if you know how to make liver juice, but it’s taking about four ounces of beef or calf liver, gently boiling it with about an inch of water over it. Don’t bring it to a boil but simmer until the beef has no blood in it, then strain. I would do one complete feeding of that for high-nutrition. Then I would go back to the other. I would start weighing in grams before and after you feed. Make sure you’re pottying your puppy. Really give it the extra calories. On the bad side, I will tell you that sometimes puppies are born with defects we cannot see. All we can do is give them the absolutely best ability to overcome them, if possible. Tube-feeding will do that. Keep them warm. Make sure the puppy is at at least 96-97 degrees before you feed it. Warm the food before you feed it. 

Brenda Adams [20:36] How warm should the liquid be?

Susan Patterson [20:40] Exactly what Gayle said. 

Dr. Gayle Watkins [20:42] The wrist test. Just like babies. Brenda, I would say given the loss your puppy has experienced, this is dire circumstances. You need to tube him tonight. Now. 

Brenda Adams [21:00] Where do I get the supplies? It’s six o’clock on the West Coast. 

Susan Patterson [21:03] And you have no tubes? 

Laura Reeves [21:06] Where are you located, Brenda?

Brenda Adams [21:08] I’m in the High Desert, by Victorville. 

Laura Reeves [21:13] Victorville, California. That’s why I’m asking; if I could think of some clinic that was near you. 

Dr. Gayle Watkins [21:22] You just need to get with a breeder or a clinic that can give you a tube. 

Susan Patterson [21:30] What you’re looking for for equipment: a 5cc tube. And you’re looking for a 5 French (5FR)—they call them cat catheter tubes. They’re red tubes for feeding, to attach to feed. Those are the two things that you need for feeding. Those will allow you to feed. I mark my tubes with a black marker. Measure from the belly button to the tip of the nose, and then follow Myra’s video, which is excellent. I’ve been tubing for years, but when I have suggested the video to people who haven’t, they have been like, “Wow, this is much easier than I thought it was going to be.” But I would definitely—if you could, find a vet to give you a 5cc. Not a luer lock, but the feeding syringe with the longer tips that you can actually cut. You’re going to have to cut that 5FR feeding tube in order to fit it properly. Because otherwise, it won’t fit on. 

Brenda Adams [22:36] I mean, I’ve watched videos. But you know, if you don’t do it right before, you forget what you’ve seen. I couldn’t remember how far down you mark it. I do remember you mark it.

Susan Patterson [22:45] The bellybutton, and you point the puppy’s nose up. So if you have the puppy laid out and you’re stroking it and you let its nose and head extend, you go from the tip of the nose right to where the umbilical attaches. That’s your length. You don’t want to go any longer. You don’t want to go any shorter. You want it in the stomach, and it’s actually a lot easier than everybody tells you it is. The key is when you’re done feeding, just pinch the tube and pull it out. 

Laura Reeves [23:19] Can I break in here, just for a second? I don’t mean to interrupt, Susan. There’s a comment here in the chat that you should take a look at. Susie Duarte says she’s in Chino. She’s got a feeding tube. Maybe there’s a way for you to connect in chat with one another directly, so you can just talk to each other instead of to the rest of the group? This is a great conversation on tube-feeding. Tube-feeding seems really scary, everybody, but it’s not as scary as you think it is. You just think it’s going to be, and it’s not. 

Brenda Adams [23:50] I went into the chat, but I don’t see it.

Laura Reeves [23:55] They just put it in. 

Cat Matloub [23:58] Brenda, we’ll make sure that we get you and Susie connected. 

Brenda Adams [24:02] I am trying to keep him warm, next to me, because I’m concerned that the mom is starting to push him away. 

Laura Reeves [24:10] Right. Brenda, the thing that you need to keep in mind is that a puppy needs to be warmer than you are. You need to keep him warmer than just you. We all want to put him in our bra. Like, that’s a thing. We all do that. But you’ve got to remember that if you’ve got a sick puppy or a fading puppy, he needs to be warmer than you are. You are only 98 degrees, and he needs to be closer to 100. 

Susan Patterson [24:33] You can make a rice sock, if you’ve got a white tube sock and some plain, uncooked white rice. Put it in there, throw it in the microwave. Do the temperature test. Make sure you’re not going to overheat the puppy, but that is really good to put them belly-on, because they heat from the belly up. 

Brenda Adams [24:55] Thank you. 

Laura Reeves [24:56] If you have fluid bags for getting fluids, I use fluid bags, and I heat those in the microwave for 30 seconds. They work great. That’s another thing I would think about: check for dehydration. Make sure the puppy is hydrated, because the lack of hydration will kill him faster than not getting food. So, if you have to give him substitute fluids, you need to be able to do that as well. That is absolutely imperative. Those fluids also need to be warmed up, so that 30 seconds in the microwave to get your fluids up to body temperature for the puppy. I can give substitute fluids in my sleep now, after the last several litters I’ve had. Fluids, to me, are first and foremost before anything else. If he’s not warm, and he’s not hydrated, it doesn’t matter if he’s not fed. 

Brenda Adams [25:43] Okay, and if I’m pinching him, and his skin’s not going back, then he’s dehydrated, right?

Laura Reeves [25:50] He needs to be on fluids. Like, now. 

Susan Patterson [25:52] Put a bolus between the shoulders, and if it goes down in five or ten minutes, you need to give him a bolus between the shoulders.

Laura Reeves [26:00] And by bolus what she means is, depending on the size of the puppy, 3ccs. It needs to be a significant amount. 

Susan Patterson [26:06] 3-5ccs if he’s 11 ounces. I’m going to jump in real quick on top of Laura. She’ll shut me down if I’m bad. In your toolbox for the first week: calcium, fluids, and tubing supplies. 

Laura Reeves [26:23] There’s a comment in here, Susan, and I’m going to say yes to that question: FFP (for people who are not familiar: fresh frozen plasma). Jean Dodds sells it. Your vet can actually make it. I had mine have to make it because I have such a disastrous litter. It’s just simply the case of drawing enough blood from a dog and spinning it down to plasma. It takes a big dog and a lot of blood. But it is not expensive to buy from Jean Dodds. It’s one of those things that should be in your toolkit. At this point, it’s past 48 hours, it can’t be taken orally. It has to be given sub-q at this point. 

Susan Patterson [27:04] It is one of those things that if you keep it in your freezer, it lasts five years.

Laura Reeves [27:07] It’s absolutely worth it. Okay, I hate to do this, but we do have to move on from this topic. Brenda, feel free to reach out if you need more. But you need to get off this call and go get that puppy on fluids. 

Brenda Adams [27:19] Okay, thank you!

Laura Reeves [27:33] Crew, thank you all for joining us. This has been Part I of our episode. Watch this space! Part II will be coming up soon.