This week’s question is about whether you’re supporting or interfering when you help mom with her neonate puppies:
“…I've noticed that you lay in the box with Velvet and provide significant assistance to her. Among many groups of breeders, there is a faction who strongly advise to essentially let Mom alone in the first days as she has instincts and knows what to do, and that the presence, participation, and assistance of humans may be bothersome to her.
So, I'm wondering if this is breed dependent? Or an individual preference?”
In this episode we talk about:
- The variability of maternal behavior
- How much assistance you should give your dam with caring for her puppies
- Supporting your dam without interfering with her instincts
Visit our website, madcapradio.com for further reading.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist.
And this is a Puppy Culturepotluck podcast.
You bring the topics,
we bring the conversation.
(00:21):
This week's question is about
how involved should the breeder be
with caring for the puppies?
And here's the question.
We're expecting a litter next week,
and I'm going to the Newbornto New Home course for the first time.
(00:41):
I've watched the Puppy Culture filmmultiple times with our other litters,
but this is my first timethrough this course.
I'm really appreciating all of the detail.
My question is that I've noticedthat you lay in the box with velvet
and provide significant assistance to her.
Among many groups of breedersthere's a faction
(01:04):
who strongly advise to essentiallylet mom alone in the first days,
as she has instincts and knows what to do,and that the presence,
participation and assistance of humansmay be bothersome to her.
So I'm wondering,
is this breed dependentor an individual preference?
(01:27):
Our girl is a golden retriever.
She's had two other litters,and I've been fairly hands on.
She allows me to be in the box with her,
but prefers other members of the familyto keep a distance.
She's had large litters,one of ten and one of 11,
and it's a lot for her to keep up with.
(01:47):
She's not had a C-section, thoughwe did experience this
with our other retired momwhen she had a singleton.
And I love the Joy of Singleton's course,
which was a lifesaver.
I'm just pondering
about the divergent thoughts on the amount
of human participation.
(02:11):
Okay, this is me again.
I can answer this in one sentence.
Shortest podcast ever.
The customer is always right
and your dam is the customer.
There is tremendous
(02:31):
variability in maternal behavior in dogs.
Some is breed dependent,
but a lot is just individual.
The most important thing that you can do
is read your bitch
and give her what she's asking for,
because they're not all
(02:53):
asking for the same thing.
Just a for instance,
my girls, not only don't
they want a dog in the room with them
when they have puppies in the nursery?
They don't want a dog within
eight feet of the door to the nursery.
(03:15):
So we have to gate off the hallway,going to the nursery
so no dogcan come anywhere near that door.
In contrast, I have a friend
that breeds Rhodesian ridge backs
and her whelping box
is in the middle of her open floorplan house
and her dams are not comfortableunless all the other household
(03:38):
dogs are lying aroundthe outside of that whelping box.
So neither one of these
dams is better than the other.
Neither one of these picturesis more correct than the other.
One dam perceives
any dog as a threat to her puppies,
(03:59):
and the other one doesn't feel safeunless she has her pack around her.
You can’t argue with them.
Give them what they want.
Interestingly, footnote
those ridge back dams
that had to have all the household dogsaround the whelping box,
(04:19):
there was a qualification to that
because those dams only wanted
the other ridgebacks around the whelping box.
There was one German shorthaired pointerin that house,
and they would not toleratethat dog around the well-being box.
So listen, they've got their own logic.
(04:41):
Don't try and figure it out or imposeyour own will on them.
Just go with the flow.
And the same is true for human company.
All of my dams want meand Mark near to them.
Most of them are okaywith our extended family,
but I have definitely had dams who wouldnot tolerate anyone except me and Mark.
(05:05):
Again, it's really up to her.
Whatever she's telling you is correct.
Now, the only other thing I would addis that
yes, if your dam is extremely competentand she is protective of her puppies,
you should just get out of the wayand let her do her job.
(05:29):
But that having been said,you still should be aware
of how she's reactingto your presence or absence.
She may not wantor need you to handle puppies
and put them on her,or help her clean them,
but she may like you to be in the roomor sitting nearby supporting her.
(05:52):
So even if your dam is competent,
and even if your damperhaps doesn't want you
to handle puppies or help her in that way,
you still want to be in tunewith her needs, because there's
a lot of ways that you can be supportivewithout literally being hands on.
And she may appreciate that.
(06:15):
You know, I do think
there's a thought out there
amongst some breedersthat you really shouldn't
have to help a dam, and that helping a dam
in some way might kind of spoil her.
I'm not going to put too finea point on this.
(06:38):
It is dangerous and irresponsible
to tell someonethat they should just expect a dam
to do a good job on her own,and tell you to just leave her to it.
You need to watch and see what's going on
and read the dashboard of circumstances.
(07:00):
Changing dashboard.
Dam in trouble.
Eclampsia. Mastitis.
Puppy struggling.
Adjusting dams, food.
If you if you're not watching
constantly, even if you're not hands on.
If you're not involved intimately
in what's going on in that whelping box,
(07:22):
you're going to be playingcatch up when there's a problem.
And we see itall the time on the boards in,
not the Puppy Culture board,but some of the big open boards.
The more public boards- breeders with bitches
with really way down into a big problemwith either puppies or bitches,
because they just left the bitchto her own devices with the puppies.
(07:45):
So if you always 100%
unequivocally need to be involved.
The question is, is the involvement
observation or
is it actual hands on involvement?
So there were some good comments on this.
Let's see. Here's one.
(08:07):
I have Havanese, so little dogs,
there's no fear of themoverlaying a puppy.
They're all great about that.
And I think their sizemakes it less likely anyway.
But how much help they need inthe beginning has really varied.
I can't actually get in the whelping box.
A box that I could lie inwould just be way too big for my breed.
(08:31):
But the box is right besidethe bed in my guest bedroom,
and I stay therefor at least a couple of weeks.
The amount of care has variedfrom one litter
where mom was fabulous, caring for herpups and gathered them to her
like little chicksthe moment they strayed away,
to my last mom, dot dot dot,I would hear a baby
(08:56):
squeaking away and wake to findthat it had rolled away from her.
I would get up and she would belaying there staring at me
as if to say, would you gotake care of that for me?
She never once retrieved a straying pup.
I couldn't leave her at alluntil the pups were able
to get back to her on their own.
(09:16):
Fortunately, that is still well
within the two week window,so I could get back to my own bed.
So I agree with Jane.
The mom gets to choose.
Yeah, I mean, a couple points here.
Definitely there's a direct proportion
(09:36):
between the size of the dam and the amountof really active monitoring that you're
probably going to have to do at leastwhen it comes to dams lying on puppies.
Just as the size of the dam goes up,
the likelihood of her smotheringa puppy goes up.
It's individual.
Some dams are careful more than others.
(09:58):
But generally speaking, it's not as muchof a concern with the little ones.
However, with the little ones,their body temperature is so,
I should say, hangsin such a delicate balance that just
straying away from the mother for a shortperiod of time could be life threatening.
Whereas with a bigger puppy,maybe that isn't
(10:21):
as big a threatand not an immediate threat.
So yeah, you always have to be monitoringdifferent
reasons, different considerations,but you always have to be monitoring.
Here's another comment.
I have to say, I watched you
in the box with velvet and thought,oh, I won't need to do that.
(10:42):
Perhaps that's a bull terrier thing,dot dot dot, then our bitch whelped
and didn't want anything to dowith the puppies to start with.
And I literally had a campbed on the floor next to them all
for the first week.
She didn't know what to do with themand needed help feeding and cleaning.
(11:02):
I guess you just don't know how they'll be
until they are there.
Well, ain't that the truth.
So in sum,
in my opinion, I would never leave
a litter of puppies with the dam alone
(11:23):
completely unmonitored,for the first two weeks.
I monitor
the dam and the puppies very closely,even if she's very competent.
I sleep right next to the whelping box.
I've never had a damthat wouldn't tolerate that.
If I did, I wouldn't force myself on her.
(11:45):
But if there is any way that you can sleepright next to that
well-being box,I highly recommend that you do.
Because an ounce of preventionis worth a pound of cure,
especially when you're dealing with thingslike a mastitis that can go from
not even detectable to lifethreatening in a matter of hours,
(12:06):
or a puppy that can go from thriving
to fading and dying
with just a few degreesof temperature difference.
You don't want a toy with this.
I mean,
it's up to you and your tolerance for riskand how invested
you are in nature taking its course.
(12:31):
For me, my emotional
and financial investment in these puppiesand their dam is huge.
I'm staying in that room with them.
If you enjoyed this podcast,
you'll love our breedercourse at madcapuniversity.com.
(12:51):
If you're a puppy owner,we have a puppy course
for you at madcapuniversity.com.
If you want to get startedwith Puppy Culture,
check out our bundles at puppyculture.com.
Thanks for listening. Bye bye.
I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist.
And this is a Puppy Culturepotluck podcast.
You bring the topics,
we bring the conversation.
(00:21):
This week's question is about
how involved should the breeder be
with caring for the puppies?
And here's the question.
We're expecting a litter next week,
and I'm going to the Newbornto New Home course for the first time.
(00:41):
I've watched the Puppy Culture filmmultiple times with our other litters,
but this is my first timethrough this course.
I'm really appreciating all of the detail.
My question is that I've noticedthat you lay in the box with velvet
and provide significant assistance to her.
Among many groups of breedersthere's a faction
(01:04):
who strongly advise to essentiallylet mom alone in the first days,
as she has instincts and knows what to do,and that the presence,
participation and assistance of humansmay be bothersome to her.
So I'm wondering,
is this breed dependentor an individual preference?
(01:27):
Our girl is a golden retriever.
She's had two other litters,and I've been fairly hands on.
She allows me to be in the box with her,
but prefers other members of the familyto keep a distance.
She's had large litters,one of ten and one of 11,
and it's a lot for her to keep up with.
(01:47):
She's not had a C-section, thoughwe did experience this
with our other retired momwhen she had a singleton.
And I love the Joy of Singleton's course,
which was a lifesaver.
I'm just pondering
about the divergent thoughts on the amount
of human participation.
(02:11):
Okay, this is me again.
I can answer this in one sentence.
Shortest podcast ever.
The customer is always right
and your dam is the customer.
There is tremendous
(02:31):
variability in maternal behavior in dogs.
Some is breed dependent,
but a lot is just individual.
The most important thing that you can do
is read your bitch
and give her what she's asking for,
because they're not all
(02:53):
asking for the same thing.
Just a for instance,
my girls, not only don't
they want a dog in the room with them
when they have puppies in the nursery?
They don't want a dog within
eight feet of the door to the nursery.
(03:15):
So we have to gate off the hallway,going to the nursery
so no dogcan come anywhere near that door.
In contrast, I have a friend
that breeds Rhodesian ridge backs
and her whelping box
is in the middle of her open floorplan house
and her dams are not comfortableunless all the other household
(03:38):
dogs are lying aroundthe outside of that whelping box.
So neither one of these
dams is better than the other.
Neither one of these picturesis more correct than the other.
One dam perceives
any dog as a threat to her puppies,
(03:59):
and the other one doesn't feel safeunless she has her pack around her.
You can’t argue with them.
Give them what they want.
Interestingly, footnote
those ridge back dams
that had to have all the household dogsaround the whelping box,
(04:19):
there was a qualification to that
because those dams only wanted
the other ridgebacks around the whelping box.
There was one German shorthaired pointerin that house,
and they would not toleratethat dog around the well-being box.
So listen, they've got their own logic.
(04:41):
Don't try and figure it out or imposeyour own will on them.
Just go with the flow.
And the same is true for human company.
All of my dams want meand Mark near to them.
Most of them are okaywith our extended family,
but I have definitely had dams who wouldnot tolerate anyone except me and Mark.
(05:05):
Again, it's really up to her.
Whatever she's telling you is correct.
Now, the only other thing I would addis that
yes, if your dam is extremely competentand she is protective of her puppies,
you should just get out of the wayand let her do her job.
(05:29):
But that having been said,you still should be aware
of how she's reactingto your presence or absence.
She may not wantor need you to handle puppies
and put them on her,or help her clean them,
but she may like you to be in the roomor sitting nearby supporting her.
(05:52):
So even if your dam is competent,
and even if your damperhaps doesn't want you
to handle puppies or help her in that way,
you still want to be in tunewith her needs, because there's
a lot of ways that you can be supportivewithout literally being hands on.
And she may appreciate that.
(06:15):
You know, I do think
there's a thought out there
amongst some breedersthat you really shouldn't
have to help a dam, and that helping a dam
in some way might kind of spoil her.
I'm not going to put too finea point on this.
(06:38):
It is dangerous and irresponsible
to tell someonethat they should just expect a dam
to do a good job on her own,and tell you to just leave her to it.
You need to watch and see what's going on
and read the dashboard of circumstances.
(07:00):
Changing dashboard.
Dam in trouble.
Eclampsia. Mastitis.
Puppy struggling.
Adjusting dams, food.
If you if you're not watching
constantly, even if you're not hands on.
If you're not involved intimately
in what's going on in that whelping box,
(07:22):
you're going to be playingcatch up when there's a problem.
And we see itall the time on the boards in,
not the Puppy Culture board,but some of the big open boards.
The more public boards- breeders with bitches
with really way down into a big problemwith either puppies or bitches,
because they just left the bitchto her own devices with the puppies.
(07:45):
So if you always 100%
unequivocally need to be involved.
The question is, is the involvement
observation or
is it actual hands on involvement?
So there were some good comments on this.
Let's see. Here's one.
(08:07):
I have Havanese, so little dogs,
there's no fear of themoverlaying a puppy.
They're all great about that.
And I think their sizemakes it less likely anyway.
But how much help they need inthe beginning has really varied.
I can't actually get in the whelping box.
A box that I could lie inwould just be way too big for my breed.
(08:31):
But the box is right besidethe bed in my guest bedroom,
and I stay therefor at least a couple of weeks.
The amount of care has variedfrom one litter
where mom was fabulous, caring for herpups and gathered them to her
like little chicksthe moment they strayed away,
to my last mom, dot dot dot,I would hear a baby
(08:56):
squeaking away and wake to findthat it had rolled away from her.
I would get up and she would belaying there staring at me
as if to say, would you gotake care of that for me?
She never once retrieved a straying pup.
I couldn't leave her at alluntil the pups were able
to get back to her on their own.
(09:16):
Fortunately, that is still well
within the two week window,so I could get back to my own bed.
So I agree with Jane.
The mom gets to choose.
Yeah, I mean, a couple points here.
Definitely there's a direct proportion
(09:36):
between the size of the dam and the amountof really active monitoring that you're
probably going to have to do at leastwhen it comes to dams lying on puppies.
Just as the size of the dam goes up,
the likelihood of her smotheringa puppy goes up.
It's individual.
Some dams are careful more than others.
(09:58):
But generally speaking, it's not as muchof a concern with the little ones.
However, with the little ones,their body temperature is so,
I should say, hangsin such a delicate balance that just
straying away from the mother for a shortperiod of time could be life threatening.
Whereas with a bigger puppy,maybe that isn't
(10:21):
as big a threatand not an immediate threat.
So yeah, you always have to be monitoringdifferent
reasons, different considerations,but you always have to be monitoring.
Here's another comment.
I have to say, I watched you
in the box with velvet and thought,oh, I won't need to do that.
(10:42):
Perhaps that's a bull terrier thing,dot dot dot, then our bitch whelped
and didn't want anything to dowith the puppies to start with.
And I literally had a campbed on the floor next to them all
for the first week.
She didn't know what to do with themand needed help feeding and cleaning.
(11:02):
I guess you just don't know how they'll be
until they are there.
Well, ain't that the truth.
So in sum,
in my opinion, I would never leave
a litter of puppies with the dam alone
(11:23):
completely unmonitored,for the first two weeks.
I monitor
the dam and the puppies very closely,even if she's very competent.
I sleep right next to the whelping box.
I've never had a damthat wouldn't tolerate that.
If I did, I wouldn't force myself on her.
(11:45):
But if there is any way that you can sleepright next to that
well-being box,I highly recommend that you do.
Because an ounce of preventionis worth a pound of cure,
especially when you're dealing with thingslike a mastitis that can go from
not even detectable to lifethreatening in a matter of hours,
(12:06):
or a puppy that can go from thriving
to fading and dying
with just a few degreesof temperature difference.
You don't want a toy with this.
I mean,
it's up to you and your tolerance for riskand how invested
you are in nature taking its course.
(12:31):
For me, my emotional
and financial investment in these puppiesand their dam is huge.
I'm staying in that room with them.
If you enjoyed this podcast,
you'll love our breedercourse at madcapuniversity.com.
(12:51):
If you're a puppy owner,we have a puppy course
for you at madcapuniversity.com.
If you want to get startedwith Puppy Culture,
check out our bundles at puppyculture.com.
Thanks for listening. Bye bye.
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