Episode 207: Tips on Hands-On Whelping & Raising Puppies

Gain practical knowledge about the essentials of safely managing the whelping process and supporting puppies through their earliest, most critical weeks. Learn about preparation, hands-on techniques, early health monitoring and best practices for setting puppies up for a strong, healthy start.

Watch the video version of this presentation here.

Transcript

Nicole Engelman  00:04

Welcome to the Good Dog Pod. Join us every other Wednesday when we discuss all things dogs, from health and veterinary care to training and behavior science, as well as the ins and outs of Good Dog and how our platform can help you successfully run your breeding program. Follow us and join Good Dog’s mission to build a better world for our dogs and the people who love them. 

Thank you all so much for joining us today, for our presentation on tips, on hands, on whelping and raising puppies, with our guest, Dr. Carla Barstow, who has been with us for many webinars last year, and we're excited to have her back. Dr. Barstow is joining us today to share practical knowledge about the essentials of safely managing the whelping process and supporting puppies through their earliest, most critical weeks. Today we're going to learn about preparation, hands-on techniques, early health monitoring, and best practices for setting puppies up for a strong, healthy start. We're, of course, excited to partner again with Purina to bring you this webinar. We're excited to present on this topic because a lot of members of our community have been letting us know that this is something you're curious to learn more about. So please continue sharing topic ideas with us, because it's very helpful as we continue to plan the rest of the year. And of course, we are hosting two live webinars every single month, meaning now that we're in the third month of the year, we've already hosted four. So we have recordings of those from 2026, and beyond in our Good Breeder Center, so you can always watch those. In case you're interested in revisiting some past topics that we've covered. As always, we have received some questions in advance of this presentation, so we're going to prioritize those ones first. I just want to share a little bit more about Good Dog for anyone who is new here and joining us for the first time, and if so, welcome! Good Dog is on a mission to build a better world for our dogs and the people who love them by advocating for dog breeders like yourselves, educating the public, and promoting canine health and responsible dog ownership. We're a secure online community that's created just for responsible dog breeders to connect with Good Dog applicants from all across the country and find forever homes for your puppies. We help breeders manage their programs from start to finish—everything from getting your litters of puppies listed and marketed to buyers, to communicating with buyers, accepting payments securely for your puppies, and all of those smaller details that happen in between a litter of puppies being born and going off to their new homes. Good Dog is here to support you in that. We also have a number of free educational resources and health related discounts to help your programs thrive in other ways too. So if you're not yet a member of our community, we would absolutely love to have you join us and you can learn more about our mission and apply to join at GoodDog.com/join. And before I pass things off to Dr. Barstow, I just want to share a little bit more about her background in canine health. Dr. Barstow is a diplomat of the American College of Theriogenology. She's also an active member of the Society for Theriogenology. Dr. Barstow practices in small animal medicine in Lakeland, Florida. (I think we have a few breeders joining us from the Florida area.) And she's the only reproductive specialist serving the Greater Tampa, Florida area as well. In her practice, Dr. Barstow works with dog breeders to breed healthier dogs, and is a longtime breeder of Samoyeds herself and participates in dog shows. So with that, Dr. Barstow, I will pass things over to you.

Dr. Carla Barstow  03:35

Perfect. Thank you so much for having me. Guys, today, I'm very excited to show you all of this. So this is going to be a lot of pictures of Sammies this time. I'm very sorry for this, but this is my most recent litter that we just went through. So I wanted to kind of go through all those tips and tricks and things like that that are going to help you guys with your breeding programs at home. So of course, obviously starting off with our basic imaging, going through the whelping process, the weaning process, and then that transition period, those last couple of weeks until you get to send them off to their new homes. What are we doing with those babies? All right, so obviously, you know, we got them pregnant. Yay. Good job. We need to confirm that they're pregnant, and that's really where our ultrasound comes into play. This can be done at about 30 days in gestation. However, if we're trying to count how many puppies to expect, this isn't going to be as accurate as we would like it to be. So that's where I really rely on my radiographs. Now, if we're planning a C-section, then I don't need a radiograph. But if you're going to be free whelping your bitch, I do highly, highly recommend that we get an X-ray, because that's going to give us our most accurate count, and that should be done the last week of gestation. Now there are some people that say you can do it as early as 45 days. And yes, you can, but that's when mineralization starts, so we really want to wait until we’ve got puppies that are fully mineralized to give us our most accurate counts. Now, however, sometimes when we're looking at our puppy count X-rays, it can be easy to miss them if we've got larger litters. I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6—there is 7, 8, and 9. When I originally counted this X-ray (this is my own bitch), I originally said eight because I thought that this was one puppy here, but there are actually two skulls sitting right there. So sometimes when we get to our double digits, it can be pretty easy to miscount, but obviously we want to have a good, clear X-ray, so try not to feed them several hours or even the morning of an appointment and trying to get them to poop, so we can have as much detail as possible for that X-ray. It makes everyone's lives just a little bit easier there. 

And then, of course, obviously, we want to have all of our welcoming supplies, nice, neat, organized to make sure that we've got everything we might possibly need. So the first thing that we need, obviously, is our whelping area. We want this to be a safe place for the female, particularly if she's never had any puppies. I want this to be away from the busyness of the house. I want this to be a spot where she can just be herself, and if she's really bonded with somebody in the household that that person is willing to spend a lot of time in there. So that means, you know, you're moving a futon in there, the mini fridge, the laptop, whatever it is, for that first week, just to make sure that everything goes well. I'm a huge fan of baby gates, making sure that mom feels safe, that no other dogs can accidentally get into that area. Now this is our baby gate at the house, and this kind of leads to a hallway, and then back here there's actually the den, and so there's another door. So having multiple layers of doors actually helps to protect and make mom feel as safe as possible when it comes to this. Now, I do really encourage feeding mom in that whelping area those last couple of weeks, particularly if it's potentially an area she doesn't necessarily spend a lot of time in, and also gives her a chance to, you know, kind of hang out in her whelping area if she wants to destroy some of the newspapers and all of that, absolutely, that's a great thing to do. So with our setup, we have our main whelping box that you can see in the back. That's got all the nice clean bedding and all of that stuff, and then our other little whelping box with some little pig rails in there, with all the newspaper that we're just going to make a mess of, and that way, we're not getting all of our pretty blankets dirty during that whelping process. And the other important thing is, when we're setting up our whelping box in that room, making sure you're figuring out: where's that air vent in that room? Is it blowing directly at your box? Because then maybe we want to close those vents, or we pick a different side of the room so that the air vents not directly onto those puppies. The temperature of the room doesn't need to be as warm as you think it does. If mom is in there with them, the room only needs to be about 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Now, while that might be warm for some people, it is a livable temperature. However, we do need mom to be comfortable, because if mom is in here and is hot, she doesn't want to be in here to feed these puppies. 

Now, when we're actually looking at the welcoming box itself, so we don't have those nice little pig rails that are in there, and that helps make sure mom, when she slides down the side, she's not accidentally crushing a puppy along those edges. That helps to protect those babies while they're young and can't get out from underneath mom. We'll have a little bit more close-ups of the mat that's in there. But the big thing with the mat that we're using in there, it's not just like a sheet that's very slick that puppies are going to slide on. This is a little bit of a textured grip to it, so that when the puppies push, they actually can get traction. So when they are learning how to walk, they're going to be able to get their legs up and underneath them, instead of sliding out like a little swimmer puppy. We do also have more waterproof mats on the front side of the whelping box, because we've had some moms who absolutely do not want to leave their puppies and we'll basically hop out of the whelping box. They'll pee, and then they'll hop right back in. So we do try to protect the floors as best as possible from that. Sometimes also when you've got mom, and she's heavily pregnant and she's got a lot of hair, shaving her to make it easier access for those nipples can sometimes be very easy. Obviously, if they're having a C-section, we're going to take care of that shaving process during the surgery itself. But for free whelping, you know, getting all that excess hair out of the way for those babies, it also makes it a little bit cleaner, particularly when they're really fluffy. And sometimes with those tails, you can take some vet wrap and wrap that tail up, just like we would for a horse, again, to keep that a little bit cleaner for the whelping process. 

All right, major items that I want everybody to have: obviously, you have to have a scale. The scale is extremely important so we know how much the puppies weigh, and we can keep track of their weights. Having something that can convert between ounces and grams sometimes can be very beneficial, particularly when we get to some of those little nuances of “Are they gaining weight?” for some of our smaller breed dogs. You want to have a notebook, a notepad on your app. I like having pen and paper so I can be writing down, so when she goes into labor, I have a little notebook that says, “Okay, what time did she have that puppy?” That way I can keep track of this as we're going because sometimes she starts popping up puppies really quick, and if I didn't write it down, if it's been 20 minutes, I don't know if it's been two hours sometimes. I also really like having some dental floss to tie off the puppy cords. Obviously, you can have hemostats, scissors, those kinds of things to do that. Most people have bulb syringes, but I don't know if anybody's used the daily which is what is here, so it has the little part that goes in your mouth, so you control the suction, and then the other part that goes into the puppy's mouth, and that's actually a great thing for helping to clear some of the mucus from both their nostrils and their throat and back a little bit further. And because you control the suction, you can make it a little bit softer if it seems like it's too much for that puppy. Obviously something to identify the puppies; that is vital, especially, you know, for me. I have white ones. Gotta tell who's who. You're gonna need lots and lots of towels and obviously a heating pad, or some sort of heating source for when the puppies aren't with mom. I don't know if anybody's actually looked at the new recovered guidelines. This is an open access article, so this is a free article that everybody can read. And I do highly recommend that everybody have that opportunity to go through this. This kind of lists all the things, why we do what we do when we're doing resuscitation in both dogs and cats, and kind of gives some really good tips and tricks. So I do highly recommend everybody look into that one there. And as I said, open access, so it's free for everyone.

Now when we're dealing with the actual whelping part, we're monitoring our temperature. So again, we've got our handy dandy little notebook, and we're going to be monitoring our temperature three times a day. When we're monitoring our temperature, we're always going to compare morning to morning, never morning to afternoon or evening, because temperature fluctuates throughout the day. Now, in the case of our singletons, like our little St. Bernard here, that temperature drop may not occur because progesterone isn't going to drop, and they may not go into labor like they're supposed to, for some of our large breed dogs that are supposed to have litters. Now for some of our smaller breed dogs, because they're only meant to have one or two puppies, they still may go ahead through that temperature drop. Once they hit that first stage of labor, that panting—that nesting behavior, sometimes they might do a little bit of vomiting—that really shouldn't last any more than 12 hours before we start to have our puppies. And if you notice any green or red vaginal discharge more than 30 minutes before the birth of the first puppy, and we hit that 30 minute mark and we don't have a puppy, that's an emergency. I want to know about it. I want you in the car heading to me, give me a call. Green is that placental separation, and that means we've got a puppy that's potentially separated, no longer getting oxygen and in distress. After we've had a puppy, we can no longer use that green coloration to help us identify that there's a problem, just because we've already had some placentas that have separated and we've had a couple of puppies. So green vaginal discharge, red vaginal discharge, 30 minutes before puppy, we hit that 30 minute mark again. (This is where that notebook is vital. Writing down everything as you're noticing it.) We definitely want to see you.

Once we start having puppies, we should continue to have puppies every two hours. Some bitches are phenomenal, and will pop them out every 15 to 20 minutes to make your life easy. But some might be a little bit lazier and take up to that two hour mark. After an hour has passed, I like to get them on a leash outside, up and walking. The leash is vitally important, because I don't want her digging a hole and hiding underneath something to have these puppies. If it's the middle of the night, make sure you have a flashlight and a towel. Reason being is she might squat to pee and pass a puppy at the exact same time. We don't want to miss anybody. Walking, we always see those pregnant members walking up and down. 

Letting puppies nurse in between is also going to be helpful for these moms. But if we ever get to a point that we're also pushing, pushing, pushing for more than 30 minutes without a puppy, again, I want you in the car. I want you on the way to the clinic. Same thing once we hit that two hour mark as well, just because we do know that after two hours we do really start to lose puppy viability. Because by the time you get to your reproductive clinic, you know, they get her assessed, they figure out what needs to be done, and if we need to go to surgery, you know, we can be pushing our four hour mark where we know we're definitely going to start losing puppies. As she's having puppies, in between puppies—so she had a puppy, she's taking a breath—I'm a huge fan of doing some sort of calcium supplement for them, giving them a little bit of calcium. I'm sure they've had a puppy. So once we've got a puppy out, we can give them calcium. You can do something as simple as TUMS or Cal Plus; there's lots of different options that are out there. Or you can go the snap route with calcium and a little bit of Greek yogurt, a little bit of cottage cheese, vanilla ice cream, something along those lines. It gives them a little bit of calcium, a little bit of energy. Just be cautious, because most dogs are lactose intolerant; we don't want them to end up with diarrhea or anything like that. And again, as I mentioned before, having those puppies nurse, because that's going to create natural oxytocin to help continue those uterine contractions so she'll continue having those puppies. While she starts to have another puppy, this is where my laundry basket comes into play. So having that off to the side with the heating pad in it to keep the puppies warm. So when she starts nesting and digging and having another puppy, I can scoop up all the puppies, put them in the laundry basket. I know they're safe. They're not going to get accidentally stepped on. I can keep track of them while mom is having the next puppy. Always good to have a nice safe area, the heating pad. Make sure that they're staying nice and warm.

Alright. So she had all of her babies—yay! Obviously she had them very quick, because none of them are tagged and ID’d. So we need to weigh them, see how much they weigh, and then get all their collars and tags on them, making sure that, you know, we can tell who's who, because they all look the same at this age. So individual things that we want to worry about with our puppies. So obviously, big part is weighing them twice a day, because that's the huge thing. If we start to notice weight loss, that's where we're going to need to start to supplement them to make sure that they're getting the nutrition that they need. And the other big thing, obviously, is making sure that they don't have a cleft palate. So in this image here, we've got a pretty decent cleft palate there, and a cleft lip as well. So now this particular puppy is going to have trouble being able to latch and to nurse, so he's going to need to be tube fed if we're going to try to make this puppy live appropriately. So things that we always want to make sure we're ruling those out, and sometimes cleft palates might be minor. So if we ever see milk coming out of the nose while they're nursing, definitely always make sure that your veterinarian does check them out to make sure we're not missing something. 

Big things for them. So previously, we used to say that if they lost weight within the first 24 hours, it was okay as long as they started gaining. We're finding now that we're actually having more infant mortality if they're losing weight. So we really don't want puppies to lose weight at all. The puppies should actually gain about one and a half percent in that first 24 hours, 2.7% in 48 hours, and then double their birth weight by that seven day mark. If you're concerned about a particular puppy not latching well, or you're not sure he's getting enough food, then we can do like, what's known as, like, the weigh/nurse/weigh. And so we're going to weigh the puppy, see how much it weighs. This is where grams really matter. We're going to let that puppy nurse for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the puppy decides it's had enough, and then we're going to weigh that puppy again. And did it gain weight? Because if it didn't gain weight, it's not nursing effectively, and we may need to help supplement this puppy. If it gained weight, great. Okay, it's doing well. It's doing what it needs to do, and that sometimes may be things that you need to do for individual puppies that aren't gaining as much as they should be.

All right, some sobering statistics here: 20% of all puppies will die. Of those, 50% sometimes will die without any warning signs, and of those 50%, 80% will leave us without an answer as to why they passed away. So these first couple of weeks are intensely critical. Colostrum is our big thing. Colostrum is immunity for our puppies, and so the first eight hours, that gut is the most critical for getting really good colostrum into mom. And what we have found is that not all nipples are created equal when it comes to what they produce for colostrum. So actually taking puppies and rotating them on different nipples every time they're nursing into its first eight hours can actually be very beneficial for these puppies to make sure that they're getting good quality colostrum. Now, if mom doesn't have any milk, that's where we need to look at: What are some other things that we can have on hand to get these puppies some good, you know, supplemental choices? For our Canadian friends, Royal Canaan does make a colostrum and milk substitute that we can use to give them that. There are some other colostrum supplements, like in tubes that you can get through, like, Revival and those kinds of things. And I know a lot of people will use fresh, frozen plasma. Nothing, unfortunately, can beat colostrum, unfortunately. So getting milk from mom is going to be ideal. So we've got some medications that we can give mom. So Fenugreek is an easy one that's nice, over the counter, medication that you can pick up at CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, wherever, and that is something she can just get once a day until she has a good milk supply. And there is a prescription medication that we do use on our horses called Domeperidone. This has been on backorder, so we've been struggling to get a hold of this particular medication, but this is a little bit stronger to hopefully kick in to have her making some good milk so we can get some good colostrum into these puppies during those first stages for their immune system. Now the big thing that we can have with puppies when they get sick is they get cold, then they get hypoglycemic, they become dehydrated, and it becomes this vicious cycle. Puppies can enter the cycle at any point. They're not, you know, nursing enough, so they become dehydrated, then they get cold, and then they become hypoglycemic—all of these things make the intestines, what's known as leaky, so the bacteria, normal bacteria, that's in the gut can leak out of these intestines and cause the puppy to go septic and to die. So if the puppies are with mom, mom is going to keep them warm. That is her job, as you know, mom. To keep the babies warm. If mom is not with them, then we need to have something like an incubator, heating pad, something to keep those babies nice and warm while mom is not with them, to make sure that their temperature is staying up. So back to our little singleton St. Bernard puppy sleeping on a heating pad and laying next to its Snuggle Puppy, keeping it nice and warm, hearing that heartbeat so it thinks it has a friend with it, but you can see the heating pad is only on a part of the box so the puppy can crawl away from the heat if they want to, and that's vitally important when we're using heating pads, to making sure that there's no hot spots and that they can crawl away. And also watching your heating pads, because most of the ones that we have nowadays have automatic shut offs on them for us, for safety reasons. So we always want to make sure that if we're using a heating pad, it doesn't accidentally turn off in the middle of the night, and then the puppy becomes cold. 

Normal rectal temperatures for puppies for the first two weeks of life is between 97 degrees to 99 degrees. If, for some reason, you know, our puppy gets cold, we always want to take their temperature, and we're going to warm that puppy slowly. Now, if the puppy is due to eat, we need that puppy to be completely warmed back to a normal temperature, you know, 97 to 98 degrees for at least an hour before we try to feed it. Because the outside of the puppy might be warm where we're getting our rectal temperature, but those insides are still going to be cold, and so that's why they have to be warm at that temperature for a minimum of that hour before we try to feed them, otherwise, the milk is not going to digest as well. And then again, we're setting ourselves up for failure for these guys.

Monitoring hydration status than a puppy is a little bit more challenging than an adult. We can do the skin test. We can check their gums. For puppies, so a normal hydration puppy: I can see I have a wet paper towel here, but there's not really much color change as compared to this one here, which is very bright and yellow in that urine. So I know that this puppy needs some extra help. When we're helping puppies rehydrate, I'm a huge fan of actually rehydrating them through their milk, so feeding them more often, tube feeding them. Sometimes we will do some warm SubQ fluids, if we need to. Key word is that fluid has to be warm because we don't want to give them fluids at room temperature, because our houses are a little bit cold, because that's going to be too cold for them to withstand. So we do have to warm that up first before they get that.

Obviously, if we need to do supplemental feedings, we can use a bottle. We can use the Miracle Nipple. Tube feeding is my ultimate favorite, because usually I've got a puppy that is sick, that's not feeling well, who's not going to have the best nursing ability. So sometimes it's easier just to go ahead and pass the tube, get the food and the nutrition that they need to ensure that I'm keeping them nice and hydrated for everything. 

Alright, other things that we need to worry about for our puppies: I'm a huge fan of iodine on the umbilical cords. That way we can prevent infections from going up the cord until those fall off. If you guys are going to be having do's and tails done, three to five days of age. And then our deworming protocol, we want to deworm them at 2, 4, 6, and 8 weeks of age. Hopefully mom has been on heartworm prevention the entire time that she's been pregnant. We do have safe ones that are out there that's going to hopefully minimize the number of intestinal parasites that we do have to worry about for them. But I do still recommend a general dewormer for these guys. 

Now when it comes to mom, obviously, you know, we know some dangerous things to look out for our babies, but mom, we need to make sure that she can take care of these puppies as best as possible. So when it comes to feeding mom, this is the time that she gets to be a glutton, and so I usually always have a large bowl of dry food out for her constantly that she can eat whenever she wants, and then a couple of times a day, I'll offer mom something high value. So some canned puppy food. Oh yes, it should be puppy food if they're not already on puppy food. Canned puppy food, chicken and rice, something to ensure that she's eating enough calories to feed these puppies. I'll also have a big bowl of water out there for her, because water is the main component of milk, so we have to have good nutrition into her to ensure that she's eating and then lots of good water. Sometimes I'll also have a second bowl of water that I’ll spike with a little bit of chicken broth, clear Pedialite, like a little bit of clear Gatorade, just to kind of make it a little bit more interesting, particularly if they're not wanting to drink a lot, and that's also sometimes where some canned food can be very beneficial because it has a higher level of moisture content in the food itself.

Also giving them calcium. So if you've got a smaller bitch with a larger litter, supplementing with a little bit of extra calcium can be very beneficial for them, just so we're not running into any other problems, and then, I don't know if anybody's ever used the DAPs or the Adaptil collars—those can be very beneficial for mom, if she's a little more stressed or worried about her, and we need to try to keep her on a more calm, even keel. Those can be very beneficial for them, particularly for our new moms, who've never done this before.

Some of the major postpartum complications we've talked about in a previous lecture, but just to reiterate, for those that might have missed that one: so agalactia. That one is the no milk. So we talked about medications to help with that. Metritis (so this is inflammation in the uterus post-whelping), so this usually happens two to three days post-whelping, so we're going to have, instead of that normal lotion that they're normally having, it's got a foul odor to it. And sometimes this can be a medical emergency, because they start running a fever, they don't really want to eat, and then we need to get this treated. It does not mean that they need to be spayed, and it's not a pyometra if she just had puppies, but definitely still needs more treatment. But some severe cases may need to be hospitalized and on IV antibiotics. Mastitis. I'm sure most of you guys have you know dealt with mastitis—that hard, red, inflamed mammary gland. These are the ones that I like to sometimes put my strongest nursers onto those mammary glands, to make sure that we can keep those memory glands nice and empty. But sometimes, again, they become too hot and swollen and painful, and mom needs antibiotics for that. Eclampsia: that's our low calcium because of the excessive amounts of milk that these moms are producing for these babies. Again, these are our small breed dogs with larger litters. It is the most common ones we're going to see with this. So if you ever start to notice some behavioral changes in your bitch, that's when you really want to start giving them extra calcium while you're scheduling that appointment to get them seen, just to make sure we're not going to have any issues, because behavioral changes is one of our first signs that we're going to see a whole low calcium.

Dr. Carla Barstow  27:36

All right. So in this image, we can see the whelping box there, so you can see the mat a little bit better. I forget how old the puppies are here. We do litter box train our puppies, and so we start to make it part of their environment, so they just get used to it being there. So we do have puppy pads in there that are a little more slick, so we are very cautious when we're watching them in there. But again, they at least get used to that area to start maybe the whole potty training aspect of this, to make the box a little bit cleaner as they start to get a little bit older.

Going through the weaning process—this is what everybody really loves, right? Alright, so weaning can be done as early as three to four weeks of age. So if you've got a mom who doesn't have great milk, who isn't really being the best mom, you can absolutely pull them away from mom if you need to earlier. You don't have to do it that early. I like to start around the four week of age mark, so I can have them completely onto, you know, solid food, by about six weeks of age. So mom doesn't have to be involved anymore, because they’ve got pretty good teeth at that point, and mom doesn't really want to be in there that much. You can start using your puppy milk replacer if you still have some on hand, and you can make it into a thick pancake material, almost like a gruel. And that way, it kind of gives them that lapping ability so they can figure out what they're supposed to be doing with something they're either familiar with already eating, and it makes a little bit of a nicer transition. I'm a huge fan of the Royal Canin Puppy Mousse for starting out puppies in the weaning process, just because it has a nice, light, airy texture that the puppies are easy to get and to eat without there being a lot of chewing involved, because they don't have teeth just yet. And then puppy food, obviously soaking that down, mashing it up into like nothing. So make the little bits easier for them to get. You can soak the puppy food with some puppy milk replacer. I usually only do that, though, for that first week, and then I usually start using just water. Otherwise, it's a lot of extra calories and nutrition that they don't necessarily need, which can then lead to some diarrhea and other consequences that we worry about. So puppy food just soaked down. I'm a huge fan of the little saucers, the flying saucers that come up in the center there. So that is with our puppy milk replacer and a little bit of kibble just kind of ground down in there, to get them some nutrition there. You can use something as simple as a nine-inch cake round pan, something with those nice little thin sides, something they can just kind of waddle up to while they're trying to figure out how to get all of that food into their system. Or if you have a really good mom, like we do, we fed her, and then she had access to her puppies, and she decided she was going to go feed her babies herself, and she vomited, and the puppies said that that was absolutely the best thing ever. So she decided she was a good mom and she's going to feed them. Not all bitches do this. We have decided with her, that after she eats, she is away from her babies while she digests her own food so we can feed her puppies. This is just messy.

Weaning diarrhea that we just kind of briefly mentioned earlier. So, big things that play a role in this, because it is very common for puppies to get diarrhea during this whole weaning process. Part of it is stress. Obviously, we know that stress plays a big role in this. We're taking mom away. They're, you know, trying to eat this new food, so it is a little bit of a diet change. Sometimes they're eating too much food. It's too rich for them, and that can definitely lead to some of the diarrhea that we'll see. Parasites often play a huge role in this as well, sometimes. So if mom hadn't been on heartworm prevention, we want to make sure that we're deworming them appropriately. Do we have an issue with Coccidia that we need to deworm for that as well, because our general dewormers don't take care of that? And then, what is our environment? What does our cleaning protocol look like? Do they have enough space to get away from each other? Are they crowded? Are they overall just stressed in general? So all of these things can contribute to that diarrhea. And when we are transitioning from one food to the next, again, just like we do in our adults, kind of just doing that slow, gradual transition over a couple of days. So if we started them off on that puppy mousse, and we're moving them over to that soaked puppy food, we're gonna, you know, still have some of the mousse in there as we're adding in some of the puppy food, and we just kind of slowly wean that puppy mousse out of there, so they're just munching on that kibble by itself. So we're kind of hopefully minimizing some of that stress on their GI tracts as we're moving through that time period for them.

Dr. Carla Barstow  32:09

So when puppies start to outgrow their space, we give them more. So making sure, again, that they've got good space that they can get to. So, again, we've got our little litter pan out there with the puppy pads on there. Some of the puppies in the box are actually currently laying on ice packs because they decided that they're just too hot for living in the state of Florida, and they prefer that. So we have decided that that's how they live their lives. When we do eventually get them used to starting to use the litter box, obviously they're sleeping in there because that's way more fun than actually using it. We start to put the pellets down pretty early in their lives, so it becomes part of the natural environment for them, so they don't think of it as foreign, and they're less likely to eat it because they've grown up with it and they've been surrounded by it. Once we've got it down, that they're used to the pellets being in there, then we'll take the puppy pads away completely. And here we have the babies just sleeping in the litterbox that they're supposed to be using for pooping. Obviously, you know, we kind of outgrow this space here. They're nice and happy. And so this is when we're going to kind of go into, like, our transition phase. So we have the lovely joy of keeping the puppies, basically, in the kitchen, in the family room area here. So we have our nice nine by six area for them. We've got the two litter boxes for them. It keeps them nice and happy. The flooring, I forgot the name of it. I forget, but it's something that they can't destroy. It's like a vinyl flooring that's easy to scrub, easy to clean, because that's the key component when we're dealing with our puppies. So without the puppies in here, you know, we also use the tubes for puppies to play in, because they think those are lots of fun. And then also, if you notice kind of around the edges, we have water bottles for the puppies. This, again, gives them free access to water without them trying to drown themselves. And it's actually quite amazing how quickly they pick up on this, that they can actually drink from the water bottles after they come in and they decided that they needed some good water, so we can always have fresh water available to them without worrying that these puppies are going to be, you know, sticking their entire head in there trying to figure this out. 

Obviously, we were discussing cleaning. When we've got any of our areas for puppies, wherever they're in, you want to have something that's always a very good, cleanable surface, and you want to clean it first with a soap-based detergent. This can be something as simple as Dawn dish soap. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, making sure that we get the area nice and shrubbed and cleaned, because if we have any fecal matter that's left behind, our disinfectants aren't going to be able to work, and they're not as effective when it comes to that. We're going to rinse the area really, really well, and then we'll follow it up with our disinfectant, be that a 10% bleach solution, whatever disinfectant that we're using, making sure contact time is so important, so if it needs to sit for 10-15 minutes, absolutely we've got that ability to let that sit, to let that soak, rinse it really well, and make sure it air dries. The hard part sometimes is “Where are the puppies during this process?” to make sure that this area is nice and clean, and again, having a separate area that you can put the puppies into. Again, I know this can be quite challenging with people. We decided that it was easier for us, so we have a piece of artificial turf that is out on our patio. It is currently winter time for these pictures, so they're okay outside, but we do have an awning that can go over the top, should we need it during the summertime, but we've got our puppy little pooper scoopers out there so we can clean up after they're having any accidents. And we've gotten into the habit: so using the litter boxes to try to keep them a little bit cleaner, but starting the actual house breaking process for the new owners, they get up in the morning and they go outside to their little area out here. They get to play. They get fed up here. They poop, they pee, they make the mess outside. Well, we can clean the inside and get that all nice and clean and disinfected and sanitized again, trying to keep this as clean as possible for these puppies, preventing parasites. Because they're on artificial turf, they don't really know the difference between grass and artificial turf. They start to go the bathroom, and they associate this with going outside and going to the bathroom. So your new owners are really going to love that part of this. Also it gives them really good socialization aspects of it, but because it's not real, I'm not having to worry about what parasites are in the yard. What are they getting exposed to? What do they have access to? And after the puppies go back inside to their pen and they're passed out asleep for several hours, this can be scrubbed and disinfected and hosed down. So again, I don't have to worry about there being anything out here that the puppies are going to be coming in contact with, and it's just really good overall socialization for the puppy. So it gets to introduce them to new toys, new play things. This has been instrumental for us during anytime we've got fireworks going on, we'll take the puppies outside so they can play. They already like the area. It's a fun area. While fireworks are going off, they get to hear it, and they're still in their fun little play area, so they're not as scared with things that are going on. So I think these things are vital for when we're trying to raise our puppies to be as resilient as possible, and this can definitely be a way that you guys can help accomplish that for them. And with that, I will take any questions that you guys might have for me.

Nicole Engelman  37:25

Awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Barstow, this was great. And we do have quite a few questions, so I will do my best to get through all of them. One of our first questions that came in is asking if breech births are normal?

Dr. Carla Barstow  37:37

All right, so the true definition of breech would be rear feet first. And so for dogs, they can come out head and front feet first or rear feet first, and that's okay. So when we're actually saying breech in most dogs, we're concerned about, like, the puppy is sideways and like, we've got a back up against the cervix or the stomach against the cervix.

Speaker 1  37:59

Awesome. Thank you for answering that. We're seeing a lot of questions about what you prefer for a litter box setup, in terms of the actual box structure itself, what you think of flooring? So I'm trying my best to combine all of these.

Dr. Carla Barstow  38:13

I think it's G floor. I think it is the name of the flooring that we use. It is a vinyl flooring that we use for the actual flooring. The litter boxes are just nice high sides for the ones that are in the puppy pen, and then the pellets are basically either like compressed newspaper or pine pellets from Tractor Supply. It's nothing fancy, but it helps, and because they're so used to it being around them, they're less likely to eat it because it's not something foreign that gets added in when they're a little bit older, and they can already see and they're like, “Oh, what's this?” and start eating things they're not supposed to. So lots of different options that are out there. You can see what works best for you, but I find that the pellets work really nicely for them. They don't usually always pee in the boxes, but they'll usually always, at least poop in those boxes to kind of, again, minimize the mess that's in there.

Nicole Engelman  39:00

Awesome. Thank you for answering that. And then just a quick follow up on that one, someone was curious: What kind of camera do you use in your whelping box? If there's a specific one that you prefer?

Dr. Carla Barstow  39:10

That would be a better question for my mother. I'm sorry she bought that one, but it is a nice remote camera that we can access from our phones. So that does make it easier, so we don't have to be in the room. We don't even have to be at the house, so it's just a basic webcam. I'm pretty sure that we can access it, but it is very nice being able to see mom, particularly if you have a more nervous mom. That way, you don't necessarily have to be as hands on, so we can be a little bit further away and still keep an eye on everybody.

Nicole Engelman  39:35

Great. All right, moving on to questions relating to mom. Do you recommend fenugreek before delivery to help with milk supply?

Dr. Carla Barstow  39:45

We don't have great studies on fenugreek and pregnant animals, and so this would be one of those things that I would say as she's starting the delivery process, I would probably go ahead and get her a tablet into her system if she doesn't have good milk. We do know that first time moms sometimes don't have a lot of milk right up until delivery, and so you know, having that on hand just to get it into her as the puppies are being born, I think, can be beneficial for them, but also letting the puppies nurse, because them nursing is going to ask for more of a milk let down. So hopefully her body's gonna respond with more production. Because definitely supply and demand. If we've got a really strong demand, the body tries to accommodate that and supply more.

Nicole Engelman  40:30

Great. And then a similar question someone was asking about if you transition mom to puppy food, and if you do that, when is the best time?

Dr. Carla Barstow  40:38

Yes, absolutely. So we want to transition mom to puppy food those last couple weeks in gestation. We don't want to do it sooner than that, because we don't want her to gain a lot of extra weight. But when she's needing all of those extra calories to support her, those growing puppies, she doesn't have a lot of space in her stomach, and puppy food has more calories per square inch, basically, so we can give them more calories without a lot of extra bulk in their diet. 

Nicole Engelman  41:04

Great. I think that covers all of our food related questions for dams. But we had another question about: is there any way to help your dam not bite the umbilical cord too close to the pup's belly?

Dr. Carla Barstow  41:15

That's the hard part. Unfortunately, that was a tricky one, and I wish I had something better for that. Some of them, it bothers them, and they just continue to mess with it. I don't think we have a good answer. Sometimes the iodine and the chlorhexidine on the umbilical cord, sometimes can act as like a taste deterrent for some of the moms, and that might be helpful for them.

Nicole Engelman  41:35

And then what do you recommend for tying up those cords? We have a breeder asking if there's a preference between dental floss or thread or something else?

Dr. Carla Barstow  41:44

I’m a huge fan of just unflavored dental floss, because most people have dental floss in their house. You can use thread. It doesn't really matter. You don't really need much, just a good square knot. You just kind of tighten down nicely. If mom is cutting the umbilical cord herself, she will crush it and share it at that same time. That, you're not going to have a lot of bleeding. I'm a little bit more hands on, so I like them not to eat all the placentas. So I have a tendency to cut the cord myself, so I don't have to worry about mom messing with that.

Nicole Engelman  42:12

Great. I think we have time for maybe two more questions. One of our questions is: Can you talk a little bit about how to prevent post whelping diarrhea, treatment, and prevention?

Dr. Carla Barstow  42:26

So post-whelping diarrhea from mom. (I'm assuming it was a more towards mom.) So if mom eats a lot of those placentas, we do know that she can end up with some vomiting and diarrhea. So I do try to minimize the number of placentas that mom eats, they don't really serve much nutritional value for her. The reason they eat them is because in the wild, they  are prey species, so they're trying to keep their area clean. So sometimes having less of those. I'm a huge fan. Obviously, the stress of them being, you know, having puppies can definitely cause some diarrhea. We have a lot of nutritional changes. We've increased the amount of food that they're eating tenfold, and so they're eating a lot of food, which can cause some of the diarrhea. So using things like Proviable, having that Proviable paste on hand, using your probiotics, so Visbiome, Purina 40 Flora, or the Proviable capsules daily, just to kind of help to keep that under control, can be very beneficial for them. There's not really much that we're going to do to completely prevent it from happening, because there's so much going on, especially when we start throwing, you know, like Greek yogurt and cottage cheese at them, and they're lactose intolerant, so they're going to have the diarrhea, but we can at least manage it on the back end with some of our other products.

Nicole Engelman  43:37

Awesome. I think we have time for just this one last question: Have you ever had any issues transitioning pups from water bottles to bowls later on?

Dr. Carla Barstow  43:45

Actually no. They do a really good job of transitioning from the water bottle to a real bowl. They figure out how to eat. We do give them water while they're outside after they eat. They eat, and then we do enough water, a thin layer of water in the bowl, so they're not completely just, you know, faceplanting into it. So they do already know how to do that lapping motion, and they don't have any issues transitioning to a full bowl of water later, once they're a little bit older. But puppies have a tendency to play in water, and they're going to make a mess. So the water bottles are great. I love them. The best thing ever.

Nicole Engelman  44:16

Yeah, I didn't really know those existed, so that was news to me. Sorry. There was this one last question that just came in that I wanted to make sure we answered. From Sandy: How often do you walk moms in between delivery of pups? 

Dr. Carla Barstow  44:28

So it's been an hour since that last puppy. I'm gonna get her up, walk her 10-15 minutes, just depending on how she's acting. If she starts to get really restless, sometimes, I may just, you know, walk for a quick “go outside, go potty, and come back inside.” I'm making sure I wipe off her feet before she goes back into the box with the puppies. And then let the puppies re-nurse, but just, you know, let her sit for a little bit. But then sometimes, it’s “Okay, you know what? Now she's not doing anything.” All right, let's go up and let's do another quick walk around the house, and then come back into the box, just to keep things moving.

Nicole Engelman  44:59

Yeah. Great. All right, I think those are all the questions we had time for. Thank you for answering so many of those, and thank you to everyone joining for asking such great questions. I think this might be a record set for number of questions asked during a webinar. So clearly everyone loved this presentation. I cannot thank you enough for being here. We hope to have you back very soon. Thank you all for joining us for another webinar. All of you really make these what they are by asking such great questions and joining every month when we have these. So thank you again to our community for being here as well. I will leave everyone with just a little sneak preview of our next webinar coming up, which is on Wednesday, March 25 at 1pm Eastern, and it's going to be the power of genotype and phenotype in dog breeder with Dr. Victor J. Stora, which we're very excited for. We'll announce that soon, so everyone can register and make sure they get to that. And yeah, we will see everyone at our next webinar, but until then, I hope everyone has a wonderful day. Thank you.