Supplies Needed for Delivering Puppies |
Letter to You Why I became an Imperial Shih Tzu breeder Whelping Photos See pups as they are born Heat Cycles First days of heat Pre Natal Care of pups Care of the Bitch before and during Pregnancy Mating your dog Best days to bred your bitch The Stud His ability to produce sperm and mate and artificial insemination Is she Pregnant Signs she is pregnant Java Due date Inside her body fertilization to birth Due Date Chart Puppies are usually born 61 days after conception Temp Chart Taking a dogs temperature and recording her temp to predict her whelp day Print Temp Chart Taking her temp to determine whelping time Whelping Supplies Hemostats, bulb syringes, towels tons of them Labor Stages Digging, Shivering and Panting See a Live Birth See my Shih Tzu deliver a pup Hard Labor Begins Whelping the puppies Aspirating Throat & Nose Removing Fluids from the nasal passages Umbilical Cord How to cut the umbilical cord Difficult Whelp (Dystocia) What to do if shes in distress What Can go Wrong - Movie Distressed Pup and Mom Care of Bitch Discharge, Retained Placentas, Eclampsia Puppy Care Fading Pup, Bottle Feeding, Tube feeding, Vaccinations Weaning the pups Giving the pups food Disease of Dogs Distemper, Hepatitis, Parvovirus Worms and Fleas Roundworm, tapeworm, Coccidia, Fleas & Giardia Selling Your Puppys Placing your Puppies Terms of Breeding Common breeder terms we all should know More Whelping Photos Imperial Shih Tzu by Jensen Imperial Shih Tzu breeder since 1976 Now Chinese Imperial Dog If my site helped you Donate any $ 1.00 Amount Quantity Canine Reproduction The Series Online Video Jensen Whelping Guide - Digital E Book! Buy Both ebook and Video |
 Hair dryer You may want to blow dry the pups to dry them off. Great for a sluggish pup too, gets him going. Stethoscope - to listen for heartbeats and to make sure all pups are whelped Towels - lots of them. If you think you have enough, your wrong. get more. Rub the puppies hard to stimulate them. Karo Syrup - Weak pups get fast energy from a few drops of Karo Syrup. Styptic powder - to stop bleeding Hemostats - for crimping the umbilical cord and to stop it from bleeding Dull scissors - for cutting the umbilical cord, dull scissors crimp as well as cut Paper and pen - to record the time each pups are born, and how much time lapse between pups. Record each placenta. Identify each pup. Notes on behavior of your female so you will remember next time she has a litter. Heating pad - keep on low setting, with a towel over it. Keep the pups warm. Bulb syringe - to aspirate fluids from nose and throat. Start with the throat, and then the nostrils.  Antiseptic - to apply to umbilical cord Paper towels Garbage can Scale - to weigh pups at birth. Monitor pups weight until you see them double their birth weight Identity marker - some band or marker to distinguish each pup Camera - If you e-mail me a good gif or jpeg file of your pups being born I will add them to my book Novel - to read, whelping can last for hours Beer - Nope not for you..... two teaspoons for mom if she has no milk. (Based on a 10 pound dog) Large breeds 1/4 cup.   Here is a inexpensive whelping box that you can make in minutes. Make sure your box is large enough for your dog to lay down in. Let it be tall enough so she can easily stand up and turn around. The flip open design is excellent so you can clean it and view the pups. Use a carpet remnant for the top of the flooring and 1/2 inch newspapers underneath If you house is chilly you can put a heating pad on low setting under the box in one corner. Some breeds need a design with guard rails, so pups don't get pinned and crushed by the sides of the box.  Moving companies like U-Haul sell any size box Look at my husband, Jay Jensen design at the bottom pictures.   If you choose to make your whelping box out of wood, include this rail design. Our great Danes couldn't crush it. We jump up and down on the sides. It would not come down.  "SWIMMER" PUPPIES Swimmers may occur in litters of Corgis or of Newfoundlands. Any breed can be affected. It is not the length of leg that predisposes a puppy or a litter to this problem. The condition is not necessarily hereditary, even though it may occur repeatedly in the litters of one bitch. All puppy bones are little more than rubber bands in their first weeks of life. If you notice the shape of the chest of your puppies as they are born, you will see a normal oval shape, with the long axis vertical. As puppies crawl around the whelping box and nurse, often they begin to acquire a more flattened shape, with the long axis of the chest becoming more and more horizontal. Factors which contribute to this are 1. Excessive milk consumption - due to a mother with great deal of milk willing to stay in the whelping box for long stretches. This is what accounts for repeated litters of swimmers from one bitch. 2. Flat whelping box - no way for a puppy to alter pressure on the rib cage by crawling up onto a toy or something similar. 3. Temperature in room too warm - puppies are content to lie in one position and not move around looking for a warm spot. Delayed walking and aspiration pneumonia are possible consequences of this flattened shape. Treatment and prevention are pretty much the same thing. Do not allow a bitch with too much milk to spend an unlimited amount of time in the box nursing her puppies. Watch for the first evidence of this problem and take steps to get mother away from the puppies for a couple of hours at a time if you see it starting. Even if this makes more cleanup for you, it will help the puppies. Place sections of orthopedic "egg carton" foam under the blanket in the box, raise one end of the box 2 to 3 inches, or put lots of small soft toys in it so that the puppies can find a place were they can get the weight of the stomach off their lungs, and can orient with their head and chest higher than their abdomen. Do not have the room too warm. A heating pad under the blanket in the center of the box will give the puppies a reason to move around when the bitch leaves the box, going to the warm spot where they can use each other as ramps to get their head and chest going uphill. If your puppies are spread out all over the box when not nursing, your room and box are too warm. They should want to congregate in one area, and touch one another. If they pile up (literally) and whimper, they are too cool. Keep the room at a comfortable temperature of 68 to 72, so the bitch can be comfortable and not stressed by heat, and so that the puppies will gather in one area of the box. This has the additional benefit of keeping them from being squashed by the bitch or against the sides of the box when she enters the box and lies down. Traditionally 'hobbling' the puppies legs has been used to help get these puppies up on their feet. In some short legged breeds this may indeed help, but generally speaking, the prevention and treatment guidelines above will be all that are necessary. If puppies have aspiration pneumonia from pressure on their stomach and lungs, cold nebulization and antibiotic treatment may be needed. Written by Mary C. Wakeman, D.V.M. |