Pet Care: MOTHER-PUP RELATIONSHIP SOON AFTER BIRTH

Mothers learn to recognise and care for their puppies as they are born. They immediately begin to clean and nurse the pups. This bond sometimes is not as strong when the puppies are born by Caesarean Section. Such mothers can have difficulty in accepting their puppies for the first 48 hours. This is less likely to happen when some of the puppies are born before the surgery or when they are put to the nipples before the sedation wears off.

A novice mother often has difficulty coping with a litter of squirming puppies for the first few hours. This is understandable. With a little help, she can be shown how to nurse her puppies and keep from stepping on them; or, in a worst case scenario, eating them.

Bitches which have a great bond to humans or “spoiled” female house pets (those who believe or have been made to believe that they are humans) sometimes will not care for their puppies until they are allowed to regain their former position in the family hierarchy.
Sometimes, due to a hormonal imbalance, the milk does not come down for the first 48 hours. During this time, the bitch may reject her puppies. Milk can be helped to flow by injecting specific hormones. Once the milk comes, the puppies are accepted. The injection of hormones is the job for your vet.

A hypothermic puppy, one whose body temperature has dropped below normal due to sickness or constitutional weakness, instinctively is pushed out of the nest. The mother dog might even eat the weak pup. This is nature’s way of culling and ensuring that only the fittest and most deserving will survive.
Other causes of puppy rejection are post partum (after delivery) infections and complications such as milk fever, mastitis and acute metritis.

N.B:
MILK FEVER:
A reduction of calcium in the mother’s blood stream just before, during and immediately after the dam has given birth to her pups. Actually, this is a misnomer because the mother dog does not have fever; at least not due to a low calcium level in the blood.

MASTITIS:
Usually a germ-related inflammatory process in the breasts (milk producing glands) of the mother dog.

METRITIS:
A sudden onset of a germ associated inflammatory condition of the mother dog’s uterus (womb), usually at the time of parturition (birthing).

Dams who continue to ignore or reject their puppies sometimes may be helped by tranquilisers. If the problem is due to a maternal infection (e.g. Mastitis), then puppies may be removed and reared by hand (we have already dealt with the hand-rearing of puppies – see Pet Care column – July 26, 2020.
A bitch whelping her first litter should be watched closely. She may accidentally confuse the puppy with the placenta; or injure a puppy while attempting to sever the umbilical cord and removing the surrounding membranes. Breeds with an undershot jaw or with a genetically-based and anatomically defect (malocclusion = jaws not being closed correctly) are particularly prone to this difficulty.
A novice dam may attempt to pick up and carry a puppy so some other nest. Do not allow your female to carry puppies around her mouth as she may become nervous or upset and bite down to hard. Nest-seeking can be avoided if the dam is introduced to her litter box two weeks before she is due to whelp and required to sleep in it.
In other cases, a nervous, possessive or over-protective dam can possibly injure her puppies, because of an emotional upset caused by too much handling of the puppies by children or strange people. In such cases, it is important not to allow constant inspections for the first three to four weeks – especially when the bitch is highly-strung, or not comfortable with unknown people.
The main message here is that you, as caregiver/pet owner, must never totally abandon the mother dog. Take a peep every now and then to see that everything is going well, notwithstanding the fact that I advise clients not to disturb the whelping mother too much, while she is getting on with her business of delivery. Actually, some whelping bitches do like to know that the beloved caregiver is around for support and reinforcement.
Also, I must mention that you really must keep your visitors, at parturition time, at an absolute minimum, especially where cats are concerned. Cats are secretive and most of the time (even after you have prepared her “delivery nest”) mother cats will hide themselves away and give birth to their kittens in some obscure place (under the bed, in the wardrobe, in your neighbours’s yard, etc.). You need not worry that a problem may develop relative to the removal of the membrane surrounding the kitten’s face (see last week’s “Pet Care”, ugust 9th, 2020); this is an extremely rare occurrence.