Advice on dog whelping, suggestions, experiences ????

Question

soon my sheltie will be whelping, asking for experiences, advice, and suggestions, thanks so very much, i am very excited, and Little nervous. please reply ASAP.

Answer 1

Your dogs breeder is the best place to learn as they know what the lines tend to do during whelping.  Since girls tend to have similar whelpings to their dams this information is invaluable :)

Your vet should also be able to suggest what to put in your whelping kit based on your experience level and if they can show you how to use some of the items.  

The most important thing to remember is if there is 2 hrs between puppies chances are high that there is a problem and get to a VET immediately!

Answer 2

She will start telling them when they can nurse and it becomes less and less. Place water and moistened food down so they can start learning to eat and supplement nutrition. At first I would make sure it's completely soft and gradually change to less and less. Unless the food it tiny bite like Eukanuba. We had a client the puppy choked and died on a piece of dry dog food

Answer 3

good luck

Answer 4

Have on hand:

Vets phone number

Vets cell phone number

Mentors phone numbers

Emergency vet hospitals numbers

warm quiet area for her bed where she is to whelp.

Heating pad wrapped with a towel. (for the puppies to keep warm)

Paper towels

cloth towels

baby blankets (big help with puppies)

scissors

Dental floss (to tie off their umbilical about 1" from tummy)

newspapers

flashlight

telephone

trash can

hand sanitizer

Her carrying box ready with blankets if she should go to the vet.

another person who can be quiet and help

Take her temperature  101.5 normal

Temp will go down when she is getting ready to whelp. 98.5 or so.

Feed her well, give a little cottage cheese for calcium daily.

Put on the coffee pot and wait.

When she starts to deliver, let her take charge..see if she will clean and remove the afterbirth herself.  If not you will have to get the pup out of the sack quickly or it will not survive.  Dry pup and give back to mom.

Pups should come fairly quickly about 10 min to 15 min apart.  If she has much really hard pushing or strained labor and doesn't produce a pup she will need a vet. You will be able to tell if she is having a lot of trouble.

40% of pups are born breach (hind feet first)  A lot of people panic here and think this is abnormal.  You can gently with a paper towel hold the hind feet and pull gently DOWNWARD from her tail and help her get the pup out.

Remember to not to get too involved here, let the Mom do it all if she is o.k. she will be just fine by herself.

Keep the pups warm and without a draft of air conditioning blowing on them.  They will go to the heating pad on their own if they are cold.  Pups can be cold in an 80 degree room!  

Remove the water from her area and make it accessible to her but not so accessible that the pups crawl into the water and drown.

Make sure each puppy is nursing and let Mom do the rest.

Good luck.

Answer 5

Is this your first litter? If so then the breeder that you bought your sheltie from should have offered to mentor you through this experience. There are lots of books and websites on this topic but nothing will replace experience.

Answer 6

You should be nervous. Like human pregnancy and delivery, complications can (and occasionally do) arise and you need to know how to handle it. Do you know how to handle an emergency? Like, how to properly stimulate a pup who's not breathing?

Have you a mentor? Someone who breeds shelties professionally and has walked you through the breeding and whelping process? A vet on standby in case of emergency?

If she's close to whelp, you should have been learning about this before she was bred. Start reading, call your vet....good luck to you.