Puppies. Raising a Happy & Healthy Litter

[DanielleOttoMom]

Hello fellow for members. Here goes my story.
My female just gave birth to 7 puppies (by my male). I have three boys and four girls. All happy and healthy babies. They are 16 days old and have there eyes open and are walking. I'm here to get advice from breeders or others who have had litters. This was not a planned litter. However now I'm raising 7 puppies and would like to make sure they are raised into healthy well tempered GSD.





I have a puppy questionnaire/application I have put together for potential owners. Also I have a contract that I'm currently working on. To assue all puppies go to right homes and abide to the contract. Each night their weights are recorded on a chart. I also currently doing early neurological stimulation with each puppy every night. We plan on doing the Vollhard temperament at 7 weeks of age. This to insure the puppies get placed in the right homes.

I'm looking for help with developmental milestones help. Also ideas on raising health puppies. What type of play room step up do you have?


Background: I bought my female from a local breeder who couldn't get her bred. She had used three different males and tried multiple times. She had irregular heats, this was hard to read when she would go into heat. I fell in love with her when I went to visit. She was already green in SchH and that is what I wanted. I took her home to meet the rest of my family. We have been actively training in PSA and both love it. Fast forward to January 15 I let the dogs to go out to use the RR in my fenced yard. I went to attend to my kids in the back of the house. About 15 mins went by.... I went to let them in and they where locked up. This totally sent me in to a panic. My husband wanted me to pull them apart. I knew I couldn't do that bc he or her could rip their interal organs. When they came undone I immediately seprated them this was done for two weeks. Three days after she started spotting. I knew it was more like she wasn't pregant bc of her history. There was no warning before this happend. Not in my home. She didn't act differently and my male didn't seem interested in her at all in that way. My male isn't fixed bc I was waiting for him to mature to the age of 2 years. Also I wanted to get his hips and elbow done before I did that. I thought I was in the clear. Then two weeks before she delivered I noticed her rounding out in her center. Another breeder at my club felt her and said "Yeah you need to do an X-ray I feel puppies!" I was floored!! The very next day I took her into the vet. They ran 3 sets of X-rays and nothing.... The vet explained she is going through a flase pregnancy. Or maybe could be pregant but the puppies didn't calcify yet??? I was told by a few different people that are breeders that she more than likely was going through a false pregnancy. Deep down I felt the need to read and educate and prepare just in case. Then exactly a week to the day she lost her mucus plug and I felt puppy movement. She carried a stuffed animal from room to room. I asked a friend to borrow there whelping box. I put together a whelping kit. Then I started to monitor her temp every 8 hours. On Monday March 19th it dropped to 98.7. Her water broke at 10:10 PM. We delivered puppies all night until 7:30 AM next morning March 20th.

PLEASE NO BASHING.

Thank You,
Danielle

[KZoppa]

Nothing for you except congrats on your cute little surprises! Best of luck!

[DanielleOttoMom]

Thank you. This was a huge surprise us. Now I just want to make sure I raise them the best way possible. I was scared to even post this here.

[atravis]

So glad everyone was born happy and healthy! Also glad you're really putting in the effort to turn this unfortunate mistake into a positive situation.

As for raising the puppies, I strongly suggest you read up on stress handling/early neurological stimulation, and consider implementing it with these little ones.

Great article on it here:
http://www.royalgoldens.com/superdog%20article.pdf

[Kaiser2012]

I don't have any experience myself, but it sounds like you are doing everything you can to make the best of the "oops" litter. Good luck!! They are such cuties and momma is a fox

[selzer]

Puppy yard??? I use x-pens. Let me see if I have some pictures:













The will start to potty train themselves given an indoor, outdoor area if the indoor area is not too large:


These little bottles ensure water remains clean, puppies tend to walk in and dump water.

[KZoppa]

I dont blame you for being scared to post this!

Also, have you spoken with the breeder you got your girl from? What advice have they offered on handling and taking care of the pups so they can acheive their best? Anything?

[KZoppa]

Sue, those are seriously some the cutest pictures!

[DanielleOttoMom]

Thank you all for your support. I will read up on the link posted ATRAVIS. Momma is doing great BTW. She has a glow to her and is at a great weight. She a wonderful mother and very attentive. I have her on a good high protein diet. Also I'm using Carmapacks supplements which is a major bonus for her. All the puppies are between 3.1 - 3.6lbs as of yesterday. I will be doing their weigh ins at 9:30 tonight.

[atravis]

Technically your puppies are right at the tail end of the primary phase where the techniques in that article are used, but even at this late stage you can at least implement some of them (supine, thermal, -maybe- tactile... might want to modify it somewhat, consider gently spreading out the paw and LIGHTLY pinching each toe for a couple of seconds).