Puppy Culture Potluck: Ep27 - How “Hands On” Should You Be With Neonate Puppies? Finding the Line Between Supporting and Interfering.

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I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist.

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And this is a Puppy Culture
potluck podcast.

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You bring the topics,

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we bring the conversation.

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This week's question is about

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how involved should the breeder be

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with caring for the puppies?

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And here's the question.

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We're expecting a litter next week,

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and I'm going to the Newborn
to New Home course for the first time.

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I've watched the Puppy Culture film
multiple times with our other litters,

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but this is my first time
through this course.

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I'm really appreciating all of the detail.

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My question is that I've noticed
that you lay in the box with velvet

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and provide significant assistance to her.

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Among many groups of breeders
there's a faction

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who strongly advise to essentially
let mom alone in the first days,

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as she has instincts and knows what to do,
and that the presence,

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participation and assistance of humans
may be bothersome to her.

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So I'm wondering,

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is this breed dependent
or an individual preference?

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Our girl is a golden retriever.

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She's had two other litters,
and I've been fairly hands on.

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She allows me to be in the box with her,

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but prefers other members of the family
to keep a distance.

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She's had large litters,
one of ten and one of 11,

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and it's a lot for her to keep up with.

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She's not had a C-section, though
we did experience this

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with our other retired mom
when she had a singleton.

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And I love the Joy of Singleton's course,

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which was a lifesaver.

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I'm just pondering

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about the divergent thoughts on the amount

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of human participation.

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Okay, this is me again.

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I can answer this in one sentence.

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Shortest podcast ever.

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The customer is always right

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and your dam is the customer.

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There is tremendous

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variability in maternal behavior in dogs.

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Some is breed dependent,

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but a lot is just individual.

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The most important thing that you can do

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is read your bitch

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and give her what she's asking for,

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because they're not all

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asking for the same thing.

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Just a for instance,

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my girls, not only don't

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they want a dog in the room with them

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when they have puppies in the nursery?

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They don't want a dog within

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eight feet of the door to the nursery.

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So we have to gate off the hallway,
going to the nursery

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so no dog
can come anywhere near that door.

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In contrast, I have a friend

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that breeds Rhodesian ridge backs

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and her whelping box

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is in the middle of her open floor
plan house

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and her dams are not comfortable
unless all the other household

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dogs are lying around
the outside of that whelping box.

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So neither one of these

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dams is better than the other.

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Neither one of these pictures
is more correct than the other.

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One dam perceives

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any dog as a threat to her puppies,

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and the other one doesn't feel safe
unless she has her pack around her.

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You can’t argue with them.

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Give them what they want.

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Interestingly, footnote

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those ridge back dams

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that had to have all the household dogs
around the whelping box,

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there was a qualification to that

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because those dams only wanted

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the other ridge
backs around the whelping box.

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There was one German shorthaired pointer
in that house,

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and they would not tolerate
that dog around the well-being box.

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So listen, they've got their own logic.

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Don't try and figure it out or impose
your own will on them.

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Just go with the flow.

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And the same is true for human company.

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All of my dams want me
and Mark near to them.

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Most of them are okay
with our extended family,

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but I have definitely had dams who would
not tolerate anyone except me and Mark.

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Again, it's really up to her.

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Whatever she's telling you is correct.

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Now, the only other thing I would add
is that

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yes, if your dam is extremely competent
and she is protective of her puppies,

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you should just get out of the way
and let her do her job.

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But that having been said,
you still should be aware

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of how she's reacting
to your presence or absence.

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She may not want
or need you to handle puppies

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and put them on her,
or help her clean them,

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but she may like you to be in the room
or sitting nearby supporting her.

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So even if your dam is competent,

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and even if your dam
perhaps doesn't want you

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to handle puppies or help her in that way,

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you still want to be in tune
with her needs, because there's

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a lot of ways that you can be supportive
without literally being hands on.

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And she may appreciate that.

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You know, I do think

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there's a thought out there

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amongst some breeders
that you really shouldn't

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have to help a dam, and that helping a dam

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in some way might kind of spoil her.

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I'm not going to put too fine
a point on this.

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It is dangerous and irresponsible

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to tell someone
that they should just expect a dam

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to do a good job on her own,
and tell you to just leave her to it.

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You need to watch and see what's going on

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and read the dashboard of circumstances.

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Changing dashboard.

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Dam in trouble.

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Eclampsia. Mastitis.

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Puppy struggling.

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Adjusting dams, food.

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If you if you're not watching

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constantly, even if you're not hands on.

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If you're not involved intimately

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in what's going on in that whelping box,

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you're going to be playing
catch up when there's a problem.

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And we see it
all the time on the boards in,

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not the Puppy Culture board,
but some of the big open boards.

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The more public boards
- breeders with bitches

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with really way down into a big problem
with either puppies or bitches,

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because they just left the bitch
to her own devices with the puppies.

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So if you always 100%

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unequivocally need to be involved.

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The question is, is the involvement

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observation or

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is it actual hands on involvement?

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So there were some good comments on this.

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Let's see. Here's one.

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I have Havanese, so little dogs,

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there's no fear of them
overlaying a puppy.

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They're all great about that.

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And I think their size
makes it less likely anyway.

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But how much help they need in
the beginning has really varied.

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I can't actually get in the whelping box.

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A box that I could lie in
would just be way too big for my breed.

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But the box is right beside
the bed in my guest bedroom,

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and I stay there
for at least a couple of weeks.

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The amount of care has varied
from one litter

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where mom was fabulous, caring for her
pups and gathered them to her

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like little chicks
the moment they strayed away,

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to my last mom, dot dot dot,
I would hear a baby

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squeaking away and wake to find
that it had rolled away from her.

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I would get up and she would be
laying there staring at me

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as if to say, would you go
take care of that for me?

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She never once retrieved a straying pup.

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I couldn't leave her at all
until the pups were able

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to get back to her on their own.

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Fortunately, that is still well

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within the two week window,
so I could get back to my own bed.

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So I agree with Jane.

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The mom gets to choose.

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Yeah, I mean, a couple points here.

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Definitely there's a direct proportion

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between the size of the dam and the amount
of really active monitoring that you're

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probably going to have to do at least
when it comes to dams lying on puppies.

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Just as the size of the dam goes up,

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the likelihood of her smothering
a puppy goes up.

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It's individual.

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Some dams are careful more than others.

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But generally speaking, it's not as much
of a concern with the little ones.

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However, with the little ones,
their body temperature is so,

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I should say, hangs
in such a delicate balance that just

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straying away from the mother for a short
period of time could be life threatening.

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Whereas with a bigger puppy,
maybe that isn't

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as big a threat
and not an immediate threat.

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So yeah, you always have to be monitoring
different

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reasons, different considerations,
but you always have to be monitoring.

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Here's another comment.

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I have to say, I watched you

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in the box with velvet and thought,
oh, I won't need to do that.

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Perhaps that's a bull terrier thing,
dot dot dot, then our bitch whelped

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and didn't want anything to do
with the puppies to start with.

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And I literally had a camp
bed on the floor next to them all

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for the first week.

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She didn't know what to do with them
and needed help feeding and cleaning.

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I guess you just don't know how they'll be

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until they are there.

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Well, ain't that the truth.

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So in sum,

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in my opinion, I would never leave

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a litter of puppies with the dam alone

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completely unmonitored,
for the first two weeks.

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I monitor

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the dam and the puppies very closely,
even if she's very competent.

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I sleep right next to the whelping box.

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I've never had a dam
that wouldn't tolerate that.

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If I did, I wouldn't force myself on her.

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But if there is any way that you can sleep
right next to that

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well-being box,
I highly recommend that you do.

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Because an ounce of prevention
is worth a pound of cure,

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especially when you're dealing with things
like a mastitis that can go from

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not even detectable to life
threatening in a matter of hours,

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or a puppy that can go from thriving

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to fading and dying

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with just a few degrees
of temperature difference.

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You don't want a toy with this.

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I mean,

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it's up to you and your tolerance for risk
and how invested

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you are in nature taking its course.

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For me, my emotional

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and financial investment in these puppies
and their dam is huge.

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I'm staying in that room with them.

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If you enjoyed this podcast,

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you'll love our breeder
course at madcapuniversity.com.

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If you're a puppy owner,
we have a puppy course

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for you at madcapuniversity.com.

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If you want to get started
with Puppy Culture,

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check out our bundles at puppyculture.com.

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Thanks for listening. Bye bye.