Episode 59: Neonatal care | C Sections | Tube Feeding

Sakurajapanesechin.com
chinoftouche.com
cavaliersofcastlemar.com

This episode covers critical neonatal puppy care, including feeding, temperature regulation, and handling singleton puppies. Dale shares expert insights on veterinary care, breeding timing, and troubleshooting common issues to improve puppy survival rates.

00:00
Introduction to Dog Shows and Events
05:29
Cultural Experiences and Veterinary Care in Dog Breeding
11:10
Breeding Techniques and Whelping Challenges
16:55
Singleton Puppies and Their Unique Issues
23:40
Feeding and Care for Neonates
33:06
Monitoring Puppy Development and Health
39:45
Managing Pregnant Bitches and Their Needs
46:22
Final Thoughts on Breeding and Raising Puppies

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the Tac Box Podcast. We are on episode 59, chugging right along. I got uh I got my brother Dale over here, and we're gonna talk about some neonatal uh puppy care today, puppies in general, neonatal, keeping dogs alive, feeding, all the fun stuff that comes with uh whelping and neonatal care. But before we dive into our topic of the day, we'll go over and check in with Dale. I know he's fresh back from Mexico judging, heading to a dog show to show this weekend for the first time in like a year. My gosh, how excited I am.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

I think it was this show last year, I think was maybe my last show that I got to show dogs in. I think that might have been it. Maybe one after that, but maybe this one. I don't remember. Yeah, we're going over to Marshall, super cool show in East Texas. Uh, they have Nancy does an amazing job. There's something for everybody there, and lots of hospitality, free parking. It's uh it's a it's a really fun show. We've got uh chin specialties, chihuahua specialties, and uh just a great bunch of people. So looking forward to that one for our annual show as exhibitors.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Yeah, it's like it's like outdoors, but not. It's got a roof, but the sides and stuff are open, so it's like not too hot, not too cold generally. I think last year it rained one of the days.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

It was a little chilly, but it does, and it has it has uh the Texas State fan, the big ass fan. That's what they're called. Big ass fans. And they can it can make a it can move some air around in there, and it it's kind it's it's uh kind of indoors, kind of outdoors, kind of open air arena, but if it rains, you're not gonna get wet. And uh it's it's uh it's an it's a really nice show, and they they do uh they do a a good job.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

And if I remember correctly, last year you won the specialty. So you gotta you're easy one. Yeah. So yeah. There you go. I mean, let's see if you can do it again this year, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

I'm bringing puppies out of that dog. I think I think I got no, maybe I think I got puppies out of that dog that won the specialty that I'm bringing this year. So it'll be fun to see if we can see if we can do a generational thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Yeah, that would be super cool. And that would that'll be good. How would it how did it you know you you did some judging in Mexico, you got to go down and get a tuxedo and do like a gala type of thing and you know, all sorts of things.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Yeah, yeah. So so that was uh they were down there for the uh Bulldog National and the French Bulldog National, and then they did I got invited to be one of the judges in the uh the tournament of champions, which is super cool. Never seen one before. They have 100 champions, and then they have the first set of judges that have three judges that judge each of them and they score them between 80 and 100. And then the the the they take 50 of the the 50 highest scoring dogs move up to the next three judges, and then you score those 80 to 100. And then the um the last set of three judges knocks that 50 down to I think it's like 12. They take the 12 top stores, and then one judge comes in and does best in show off of that best in show and reserve best and show. So it was really kind of interesting. You would watch and the scores would pop up on the screen, which was kind of like, you know, you'd be seeing, like, well, this dog, and it goes in there, and these three judges, and they'll go 99, 5, no, not 100, and 81, 2. You know, like, oh, someone didn't like it. All it takes is that one person going, eh, and you might not make it into the next round. But best in show was an amazing show low, which is a Mexican breed, very cool. They have some of their bronze sculptures of that, and then reserve best in show, I believe, was the uh Chihuahua. So, I mean, two Mexican breeds that you know, going best in show and reserve best in show, but it didn't start until like seven o'clock, and I think it went till like close to 2 a.m. But they was, yeah, yeah. We, since I was on the second round of judges, and there was a uh shuttle going back to the hotel and we were flying out the next morning. We opted to, well, we thought, well, we just check the results online. Uh would have liked to have stayed to the end, but not, you know, staying to the end didn't sound as appealing, having to get up early to be to the uh airport and the next morning.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

So I would have died. Nay, I'm like uh like I need my sleep trying like staying up till 2 a.m. I don't know if that would I don't know if I could do that anymore.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Well, you know, you can do it once in a while. You know, it's like that Toby Keats song. You can do it once, pretty good, you know. Probably couldn't do it often very well. But um, you know, and there was it was music and lights and everyone's dressed, you know, formal stuff, and it was it was fun. It was a beautiful venue. I mean, wouldn't have had to be like quite so late, but it was it was fun, it's fine. They served uh a you know lovely dinner, and uh, you know, it was it was very nice. And so, but I thought I enjoyed watching that, and then they had two more days of judging. So it's we were only there for three days, and uh I got we got to go touring the pyramids, the chur pyramid of the sun and the one of the moon, and then that, and then that's right by on our way back. We would got to go through the basilica and saw the lady of Guadalupe and all that stuff. So that was which is the most visited holy shrine in the world. So that's that's that was a big deal, and um you know, so like I said, it was a lot of fun, and we got to kind of take in the culture, and one thing I thought was super cool, and the dog people might actually find interesting, other than you know, like our vacation stuff, but um the kennel club grounds are owned by the kennel club. And on the kennel club grounds, there is a huge veterinary clinic with 25 vets and a veterinary hospital school. So people are going to school to be a vet, and the people, the exhibitors and the breeders that are members of the Kennel Club get to uh use the uh use the clinic at a reduced price. And so, I mean, here that school is turning out veterinarians that have and are experienced in purebred dogs and in breeding, and instead of getting um a scholarship from Peter or something, these are pro-breeder vets uh that are getting to, and a lot of the vets were over there working at the show on the showgrounds. We had a super cool young vet, uh, Carrie, that uh had corgies that drove us back to the hotel. I just think the whole concept was very visionary and for a long-term plan for how their kennel club and their showing and their breeding and the veterinary community all kind of cohesively together, moving the whole program forward. I thought that was kind of like brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yeah, that'd be cool to see something like that up here, you know. And I was gonna ask, like, if the showgrounds were before you said that, but I think you answered the question if the showgrounds were more permanent, like Purina Farms, because some of the pictures I saw is like they had statues and things like that, but they all looked like very permanent statues, like concrete type of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Well, it was bronze, yeah. Yeah, they uh you know, they're very permanent. They have beautiful grassy grounds. They put up a lovely tent over there, and it was just it was really, it was really cool. I I was so impressed with how they, the Kennel Club was working for the breeders. And one of the biggest uh challenges, and we're gonna talk about that today, is with breeding and getting veterinary care off hours or having to explain a friend that took in uh a Japanese chin the other day for C-section, and the vets kept saying, What was it bred to? Like, well, clearly a doodle, you know, like, no, another chin, you know, just like this, you know. I mean, and so when you have vets that are immersed into the promotion of a purebred dog, they get it. I mean, they get it. They're they're probably going, you probably didn't take your champion top quality dog and bring it to another breed for kicks, you know, that type of thing. They they they have the concept, they're with you on that. And they probably know that, oh, this is a young, you know, 20-month-old bitch. We probably don't want to spay her on her first attempt at breeding. All of that kind of stuff, which is like when so many of our breeders, when they have to go into the vet to do that, they're like having to fight to keep their dog from getting spayed, they're having to fight to get like going, my dog's been in labor. I actually know when it was bred, I know what it was bred to, and uh it's been labored for this long, you know, and uh all of that, which I mean when you go and working with uh those after hours emergency clinics, it's not that degree of comprehension you're dealing with.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

No, it's it's I mean, generally the first person you're speaking to is just like an hourly employee that's just a body, you know. They don't$18 an hour. Yeah. Yeah, they don't care, they don't have anything. Is that a raccoon riding a bicycle? Or what was it?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

That would actually be an armadillo. This is another judging gift right there from the French Bulldog Club in Dallas. And kind of a fun story. This was a gift for uh a specialty I judged a year ago, and I put Winter's Dog, beautiful pie-colored Frenchie from Mexico. And so this year, two years later, I'm judging at their national show down there, and I see this beautiful pied Frenchie, and I'm like, oh, yeah, that's that says me all over it, and I like I gave it the breed. And then we're getting the picture, and he said, We showed it to you as a puppy in Dallas. I'm like, get out of here, really? So it was kind of kind of fun to like that dog as a baby, and then have it, you know, because you know, you see a pretty puppy and you go, please, please turn out, please turn out, and then to see that happen. And I had another kind of fun one happen with uh in Bulldogs, this gorgeous little uh white bulldog bitch puppy. I gave her winners bitch, and she went best of opposite over the champion females, and she really pushed the champion dog that I end up giving the breed to come to find out that was her father, and it was very, very cool that they father daughter, you know, that kind of quality. It just kind of like when you see good breeders and they've got programs going that and they're getting quality stuff like that. Just it's super, super rewarding to see, you know, when people's programs come together like that.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

And for anybody that's it would be the Bulldogs, father and daughter, father is on the right, and the white one is the daughter on the left. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Yeah, very, very cool. For anybody that's you know listening to the podcast, you gotta be on YouTube because you just missed Dale's mug. You missed a picture he showed, like you gotta watch on YouTube so you can see all this stuff. It's it's yeah, absolutely. It's a visual podcast. We do a lot of visuals.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Yeah, exactly. And and you're missing out if you're not if you're not seeing, you're not getting to see the the the the full experience. And here was the here was the little pied Frenchie that went best debris at the national show.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

So this is this this last show in Mexico. Nice. Yeah, and you have experience with Frenchies, right? Yeah, yeah, no, Rick raised them for a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

I co-bred them and bred a pretty fair number of champions and stuff. I you know, that they're it's a breed I've love showing and uh you know think because I'm I like bulldogs, I think bulldogs and French bulldogs, I think they're just such cool dogs of extreme type.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah, oh yeah. So let's talk uh a little bit about neonatal puppies, you know, and you you had mentioned, you know, finding vet veterinary care c-section stuff unexpected when you might need that, or you know, even yeah, I I feel like that first three days of of puppy care is critical to probably their life in general, but definitely their, you know, how how they're gonna thrive or not. So I I feel is that kind of, you know, am I on the right track? Like the first three days are probably like the most important days of a puppy, you know, and then weaning obviously, but that first three days is critical.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

After the first three days, you can name it. Don't name it before then, unless you want something to put on the marker. Don't name them until you're three days in. But the um, because the other day, I mean just the other day, I had two females that were bred on the same day, and they whelped a full week apart. And and you go, Well, why is that? How is that? How did that happen? Well, the one of them I bred just as it was ovulating, and the other one I darn near missed, and I bred her on like a 40 where she was scooching on out of being in heat. So it's really not the day that you breed them, it's the day they ovulated, and so that's part of the trick with these bitches in welping them because that neonate thing comes from the result of your welping, you know. So if you I mean, in the perfect world, they're gonna carry them for 63 days or thereabouts close. And then they're gonna have this like lovely textbook delivery where they're not gonna be stressed. The mother's gonna be in a full labor, which means her milk will be down, and that you're gonna they're gonna be born in a timely little manner. Well, while we're going for this dream, let's throw in that we'd like him to be head first.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Can we also throw in that we would like it to be like 8, 9 a.m., not in the middle of the night?

SPEAKER_01 14:55

How about that?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Yeah. And and then, and then we also got the placenta along with the puppy. So we didn't have any retention. So we had it all together. So, but any one of those missing things can add stress to the puppy. And especially when you're talking about a bitch that maybe has to have a section. Now, is it a scheduled section or is the bitch how close to being in labor you can do reverse pagesterone to see how close? But when you have those bitches that are didn't naturally well, and how and then throw in the added dynamic of a singleton, whoo, there, lots, lots going on there. You know, but you really have to be able to look and see how free-flowing is the milk, what is the is this puppy latching on, you know, at what point do I need to, how much supplementing? That's where you kind of the magic of being weighed and seeing if they're gaining or not really decides. Because you can look out and go, oh, they're it takes about two days for a a pretty healthy puppy to die. You know, it takes about two days. You can you can have that little grace period where it's on there and it's like tootling around and all that, and you think, oh, everything's good. Hmm, is it? Because if it's not gaining, then it means it's losing. And if it's like you know, if it's not latching on while it's strong enough to suckle, then it's getting weaker. And if the milk isn't free enough flowing, if the bitch isn't eating enough, you know, that her milk is coming down and and stuff, then that's where you we have to start in with the supplement feeding to get them that boost, to keep them going until the mother kicks into gear. So what did you have happen with your puppy?

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Well, there's a couple before that.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Like, what's the issue? Like, what's the issue with a singleton puppy? Because you would think common sense would tell you one l one puppy would be way easier to birth, to raise, to care for, than a litter of four for mom. But I don't know that that's necessarily the case. So, like, where we just totally run into issues with singletons.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Okay. Singletons are nothing but issues. Yeah. So very oftentimes the singleton can get too big to be naturally birthed. There's also just it's kind of like it's not packed under enough pressure to come on and shoot 'em on out. So it's really easy for them, unless it's a pretty strong bitch, you know, singleton puppies. It ups your a toy breeze, like it ups your odds significantly of having to have a cesarean or a unassisted birth. The other thing, progesterone is, you know, so like as is we do the reverse progesterone as it starts to fall, and the numbers I'm gonna use are off of the uh Biumeryu minivitis machine. And so they'll say, like, you know, in the threes is viable time for the puppies, or they're gonna be within a day of birth type thing, within 24 hour period. So if you section and you're in the threes, well, singleton puppies, that number doesn't fall like as fast as when there's a litter, a little community going on in mom. And so the singleton, you might take that that progesterone and it might be at a five, which would be way too high to section. But if it's a singleton, it might not. It might it might not actually fall until that puppy has died in in utero. So that's that's where that's where knowing the number that you bred her on and knowing how many days you bred her on makes all the difference. Because as like I was telling when we were started this, uh, you know, how the two bitches born on the same day, bred on the same day, and their puppies are born a week apart. How did that happen? And nobody was preemie and nobody was late. It was, you know, that's that's the magic of the progesterone number. And with the singletons, you you cannot get dependable dropping of the progesterone. So if you're talking like a uh a surgical or a surgical insemination or uh, you know, all that stuff, you keep really close tabs on on your stuff. Because if you're like, if I'm 62 days, 60 going on 63 days, and her number's not falling, and I'm right on her on her uh ovulation, well cut her. You're not gonna not gonna wait for it to fall and wait for the puppy to die in Utro and then get to cut it out tomorrow debt. You know, because you have you have that window of opportunity where you can change the outcome of this story. Yeah. You know, and so so that that's where that's where whenever you have something and you think it's a singleton, you need to go on high alert. You need to be like super diligent watching that bitch, keeping tabs on her, knowing when she was bred, all of that. Because she has her odds have gone up at least 30% that there's gonna be challenges with that, with that delivery.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Well, and that's the like the key to doing pagesteron, because otherwise we're playing the guessing game, you know. It's like I have a bitch right now that I think is on day 60. She's on day 60 from when they doesn't it doesn't mean that she's actually on day 60 from ovulation. She could be at 58, she could be at 62. Now like who really knows, you know. So we'll do some reverse progesterone on her and see where she's at and hopefully get a good idea of, you know. I guess the the only thing that that's really gonna tell us is if she's gonna birth within the next 24-ish hours, right? I mean, if she's at a five, it's like, well, it could still be two days or right. You can't really tell.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Once you get down into the threes, they don't tend to bounce back up. They can be in the fours, and you can be four, four, four, and then all of a sudden six. But I've never seen them, and we've done this progesterone for for over 10 years now. I've never seen them get down into the threes and have them go back out of the threes. Could it happen? Sure. Anything that's one thing in breeding dogs, anything's possible. And so if you say something can happen, stand back. It's gonna happen tomorrow. But usually speaking, if you're in the threes, you're within within a day or so of well being. And some breeds will go lower than others, like my cavaliers, well, they can cruise down into the ones. I've done reverse progesterone on chin.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

have them come back and they were at a three five got you know went back to check her and she'd already had a puppy like okay you know help me help you you know is it a gradual is it a gradual drop as they get closer and closer can they sit at a five for a week or if they're at a five you're kind of like okay yeah it can hang it can hang it can go up it can go down a little it can fluctuate it's uh it's that LH surge that we're watching and then the and the dropping so if they're at a five it's not like oh they're 72 hours out it's like no this still doesn't give us much other than you know we're going in the right direction it means you can it means you can sleep tonight yeah you can sleep it means you can go to bed yeah you can go to bed you don't have to stay up all night so that that's a plus right yeah you know well and and and it's it's just part of the the not guessing game because I kind of just had that happen. You know we were talking about singletons and you know it was like I had a first timer bred not on pagesterone so no clue when she was actually ovulating doing the letting the stud dog tell us when she's ready and you know that is you know it's been pretty successful at this point. And then you find out it's like oh she is she we got her pregnant with a singleton cool. When does she do?

SPEAKER_01 23:23

Well I don't know because we didn't run pagesterone so I don't know when she ovulated I can get you close you know and then you know and then you don't run reverse progesterone so it's kind of just like you know going off of how she's acting and and doing all that and then you know and then of course goes into labor at 1 a.m you know of course of course that's how it's always gonna work first you know throw all everything together a singleton a first time mom and and and 1 a.m you know one thing I'd like to talk about with um with those with that neonates and the and those puppies there are levels of um the puppy's development that are kind of crucial so you're gonna see a lot of stuff online and people will talk about well I just tubed them here's the deal with the tubing you know you tubing negates the sucking reflex the sucking reflex is really important if you can get them to suckle it is so key to the survivability and the viability of that puppy so if you can get them to suckle on either a bottle or a syringe that is so much better than tube feeding. Tube feeding is faster. But what happened a common mistake made with tube feeding is when you do the tube feed, you're gonna take that tube and you're laying in the bottom of the chin and you're gonna lay that tube all the way down to their sternum and then go up about about a width of your thumb and you're gonna mark that tube. And you're gonna go ahead the thing is with the most common mistake people make with a tube feed is they uh aspirate and drown their puppies and kill them. And it's very tempting especially at like 2 a.m when you were just went to bed at 1245 to say I'm going to fill the little bastards up and I'm going to bed that's that's the natural thing that you're saying on there. I mean because you're at least thinking it you know you're thinking it in your inside voice like I have been up now for you know 36 hours I you know I don't care if I live much less this dog living. So but what happens is you really have to go ahead and you have to take the amount that that puppy would normally nurse and then I like to go ahead and cut that about in half. And so I'll go ahead I go to the corner of the mouth and very slowly letting them kind of because they'll swallow it and you'll see it go down you know not in the center because that will kill them almost instantly go to the corner slowly let it go down go down. And then when it gets to the mark that you put on it where you measured it off to their little sternum as you stop. Don't go further than that. And then I hold them up by like just underneath their head so their little bodies are hanging like a Christmas tree ornament and go ahead and just very slowly go ahead and do that. And then when you go to take the tube out have the puppy up and down because if the puppy's laying on the side the milk can follow the tube back up when you pull the tube back out and it can aspirate the puppy aspiration kills a good chunk of tube fed puppies especially in toys so I mean it is very detailed work. You have to really be in a calm controlled state you have to be like very methodical I'm gonna hold it up here I'm gonna put however like you know I'm gonna put a CC of milk in I'm going to slowly pull that out and I'll hold the puppy and then then I'll usually just scratch them on their chest a little bit until I see them swallow. And then I can kind of you know then that means it's closed off and it's not going to go and fill their lungs with milk because if you haven't aspirated and drowned any puppies then you haven't tube fed enough. You you just you know you have you have something to look forward to because it is it's really hard and it's easy to get comfortable with it to get sloppy with it to stop paying attention to how far you're putting the tube down to want to just go ahead and fill it up real fast and get them golf ball full. It's not a good way to tube feed and then the whole time you're tube feeding you need to be trying to see if you can get their strength up so that they can suckle because then get back to bottle feeding because you can't really aspirate them on a bottle or a sponge or the glove any of those suckling ways much more natural and much you know it's it's developmental towards survival. You know tubing is just like we're at the end of the thing here this is it's do or die and but you know you have to kind of be mindful of it I think one of the things with neonates that I don't think you you tend to think about a whole ton but it's like it's been so prevalent is like temperature temperature of the puppy temperature of the formula you know there's like a cold puppy you know if if they're they're cold they're not gonna want to eat they need to be warm to want to eat even or if they're they're cold and you do feed them it's like they get boo-boo belly you know and it doesn't sit well.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

And same with the formula you know if you're if you're feeding them formula it's like well you can't give it to them cold and it can't be too warm you're gonna burn their throat you know it's like it's like and but that goes back to baby 101 if you put the milk just like I've seen everybody's mom or grandma shake the bottle on the wrist if it burns you it's too hot.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Don't don't put the pipe don't put that bottle in the baby's mouth let the bottle cool. If if it's cold warm up the bottle a little bit more so for me I warm up my bottle in a coffee cup of water and and then in between puppies I'll drop it back in there and let it warm back up again. And I mean as long as I know it won't get overly warm and and you know you could keep the pup and it's kind of hard because in the one thing is you want to keep the puppies warm but not too warm. And I think that the the magic of that is optional heat where like you have a heating pad underneath part and then have parts so because puppies are amazingly like they're a little they're cold they'll move over towards the hot side they're getting a little warm they'll move over towards the cool side and you need the cool side for mom. You need the warm side for the puppies if you just put heat from the bug everybody's getting baked just like a convenience store pretzel you know so if you have heat underneath and I think that underneath heat is so much better for digestion you know that's that makes them much less likely to want to you know that you know to to get a a sour belly and I think the other thing is you really have to play with your formula and I think that you know there's a couple that Jane likes a lot if anybody wants uh those I can they can email message me on Facebook or whatever and I can let over her the brands but goat's milk is fabulous especially if you can get something uh where it has colostrum in it fabulous there's some really really good formulas out there the kicker is you know the formula I mean sometimes you're gonna raise a puppy the whole way on formula that's like yeah I to me that sucks but it's sometimes it's other times you're gonna go ahead and use that formula as a bridge to get the puppy strong enough to get nursing on mom so she can take it on take it over that's the goal for me is to get them get that puppy strong enough you know back in the olden days before we had really all these really great formulas we used to take sweetened condensed canned milk and seven up and um mix them 50-50 you know hey it worked i'm I'm not not endorsing it but it was one it's something we did in the 80s and the 90s you know but it kept high in sugar and it power rangered them on up and if they could if they could go ahead and go the next step and start nursing that was the next goal.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

It's I think it's it's an extremely important like the heating source you think like I tried a heat lamp once and and it was just like it doesn't work on toy breeds like your welping box is too small. So the heat lamp like you said it heats the whole welping box and it makes them you know it's like it might be able to work on like black labs or something where you have like this huge welping box and you can keep the heat lamp in a corner yeah yeah then I can I can I can kind of see it. But yeah for toy breeds it's like it doesn't work you need a heating pad and even you know in your welping box on a heating pad it's like a normal size heating pad takes up half your welping box on a toy breed you know like it's you know enough room for the the mom to get off but one of the one of the coolest sights is like when you see your puppies laying on their back and they're just like full sleeping on their back twitching you know it's like you know it's it's like it's just it's like one of the best sites because you know they're good. They're content they're happy. Yeah yeah yeah it's the best feeling in the whole world when you reach in there and scratch their little bellies and their feet are going like their feet are yeah yeah yeah and it's like no for sure I think you told me somebody told me I think it was probably you most likely it's where I get most of my info either you or Google. But you know this is like a quiet puppy is a happy puppy. You know it's like if they're not making noise they're either dead or they're good. You know one of the two you know pick one.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

But quiet is quiet you know when when they are making noise hot cold hungry you know those those are your three options you know and I think that that's really important is to you know get that contentment factor. Try to have that try to have the magic of that um of that litter box uh where you know with that with their babies in there try to have that be a a very peaceful little harmonious corner of the world not a lot not a lot of going on there to upset the moms. I like those I like that my moms to have you know sometimes to throw a towel over part of it you know just to kind of give them a little privacy because fostering that as much of natural type of stuff even when I do a section oftentimes I'll ask the vet to throw a placenta in a sandwich bag and take it back and give it to the mom later because it has natural oxytocin helps them bring them into milk helps them get into the mindset of I'm going to raise the baby. And I know we've talked about this before when you have multiple babies then you need to you can you have to really watch and get checked in see if everybody's gaining like I had a litter of eight the other day cavaliers and then another the other one had a litter of two well I took the two smallest ones from the eight and gave it to the to the one the ones only had two so you know eight went down to six and two went up to four and it's like you know that's just that's just like putting your finger on the scales of fate you know kind of like helping them out. And if you're going to you're looking in there and you're looking at those puppies and some of them seem a little stronger than others, you might go ahead and break out that bottle and bottle the biggest ones bottle the full ones get them good and tired and fat and full and let put the little guys on the mom where they can do that incremental slow feeding that they so desperately need that they're getting knocked out of the way for by their bigger siblings. So those are just little things like that that you can do. And another thing is like when we're talking about like your litter notes, if you're gonna bottle or hold them on to feed them, you know, like you're gonna hold on a couple of puppies at a time figure out which ones you're gonna do and then say I'm gonna do these two this time and this two and keep keep track of it because sometimes you'll have like four black and white male chins well which one did I hook on that way you can kind of keep tabs on that a little bit to know where where where you are who needs to be hooked on and that kind of thing. And if you have the time to keep a few notes on that you know you're gonna you'll save puppies you'll it'll it'll come back to you.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

You will save puppies on how do you how do you start the diagnostics of you know say you have a day old puppy or a two day old puppy and it's like they're making a lot of noise and as we just talked about a noisy puppy is not a happy puppy. So where do you start how do you start diagnosing of like what's going on with this puppy obviously temperature cool temperature seems good puppy's got a heating pad they're laying on it maybe temperature's good so where do we go from there?

SPEAKER_01 36:35

Poop let's see what the poop is I mean is this does this poop look good is the is it enough poop because if there's not enough poop then it's not eating enough you know and you know they sometimes you know kind of kind of because the whole thing like you know one thing that the moms do so much that people don't even think about you know the moms move the babies around that like moves their digestion they even when their their little eyes are closed and their ears are sealed they the moms keep them going and they they clean them if you're if you have a bitch that's not really cleaning the puppies then I try to really take care of my puppies by first taking care of the mom because if she's eating if she feels good if her stomach is right if her appetite is high if her emotional needs are being met then that's going to up your survivability on your puppies a bunch because she is your biggest proponent of those puppies living and having this go well. You know so that's the first thing I check is her milk good? Does she have a mastitis going on? Does she have enough milk? Is she is she gaining weight after the birth because everybody weighs their puppies but not everybody weighs their mom you know so if you have like a if you have whenever you talk about super large litters or like the one puppy either end of that range is a little bit dangerous for the mom. You know and so you need to pay more attention to her you know when she when she's in there keep making sure that she is eating that she's not hungry that she's not feeling neurotic that she's not having anxiety if your bitch is picking the puppies up and holding them and moving them around like a crazy dog, she's not ready. She's you feed her, calm her down, get her lower the anxiety in the room get her to a point hold her down or you're gonna sit there and listen to Frank Sinatra music or whatever and have a glass of wine and just like get everybody calm because all of that is going to make her more calm it's gonna make she's gonna take better care of the puppies puppies are going to thrive more. But so seeing that the puppies are eating keeping warm and that their poop is good you know you should be home free.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

I'll be interested to see like second time around on on some of my bitches because like I had you know I had two I have two first time moms that wanted to move puppies around and I think it was a first time thing I want to bring my puppies to you know I'm not used to living in this whelping box. I want to bring my puppies to where my people are I think is what it was but I don't I you know obviously I can't communicate with dogs so I don't know you know the dogs seem happy and just wanted to bring the puppies to us is what it kind of seemed like you know so it'd be interesting to see on like when they have their second litter how that differences are you know as them being a mom you know as that anxiety level down more because I also have you know dogs that have had multiple litters and it's just like give me some food. I did my job I'm hungry now.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

You know like totally statistically think statistically saying second litter should be easier you know should be they should be more experienced it should be lower stress statistically speaking they should be better off you know that's that's the plan.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Now like so what's normal weight loss for a mom after she has puppies because I mean she's gonna obviously gonna lose some weight because she's spitting out puppies and then she's probably gonna lose a little bit of water weight and stuff but you don't want I mean you see a lot of times where it's like they get so skinny and it's like well that's not healthy. And you know we want them to be eating they should be able to get to a point and maintain if not gain a little bit of weight. So like what's a how do you determine that? That's a good question.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

I wish there was an equally good answer for it, but there when it comes down to it, you're especially in toy breeds, you're going to how pregnant they are how much you know how strong of an eater they are going into it you really want to by by 30 days in pregnant you need to have your toy breed bitches cut from the herd they need to be living solitary you know you really need to be feeding them by themselves monitoring their activity level you need to be watching them gain weight. If you go in there two things are really bad a fat pregnant bitch bad that's gonna be bad fat fat pregnant bitches usually have low birth weight puppies which in there are super hard to raise like you know when they have like fat over the hips bad but if they get too skinny and some they are toy breed pup toy breed moms are prone to pregnancy toxemia and you know where they'll stop eating. So you really just really want to keep calves on their eating run your hand down their back kind of like how do they feel you know work on getting them to eat you know throughout the day start pulling out your tricks as you get closer into the I mean some of them will eat like it's it's the last supper every meal. Love them those are your favorite girls others they'll like going I can't touch a bite I'm just like you know I'm just I'm too I'm I'm gutted I can't carry on those they're gonna make you work. You're gonna be grilling chicken breasts and hand feeding them and doing whatever you need to do to get them to eat to keep them eating then weighing them after they're done and then they should start to grab they should start picking up weight as they're as you know because those puppies are going to be pulling more and more and more and more you've got to keep them eating more and more and more and more to keep them in match. When you don't and your bitches not eating enough there's a danger zone in there about 21 days where you they can go eclamctic where they can have like milk fever and they will basically have a heart attack and die and it takes about five hours and they will be shaking and that's what so like we start in there we start you can either use pet cals or tums once the babies are once their eyes are open we start hitting the moms with the pet cows and the Tums we also take and put switch the moms over onto puppy food because it's higher calorie you know but usually our goal is by the time we wean off our puppies we want our moms to need to go on a diet before they're bred again. That's our goal you know and when you do that you won't lose your bitches will stay strong when I see uh dogs that have weaned off a litter and they look like they're from Ethiopia that bad kennel management that that Yeah, that's possible. Genetically not great breeding stock. But if you're feeding them well and you're paying in, they should come off of that and not be emaciatedly skinny. And if you keep the if you can keep them in condition through the litter, you can breed them back on the next heat. You know, when you're when you have times when you go ahead and and let them teeter to the edge of like, you know, uh just fading away, well, that's when they're not going to be able to be bat bred back because you've just let them run too far too far down.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Yeah, and I've had it both ways. I've had some moms like poop out their last puppy and it's like, give me some food and just chow down food and never have a problem. I've had some like my last one, where it's like, yeah, yeah, you're grilling chicken breasts, you're cutting up ribeye, you're doing anything, and they just look at it and turn their head, and it's like you finally get to a point of like, you just take a glob of peanut butter and smack it on the roof of their mouth, so it's like they have to get some calories down because, you know, they don't willingly want to take anything. And it's like, well, that's a pain in the ass.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Many, many times I have had bitches that have, you know, that I have had to go on to, and I will sit there and syringe feed those bitches, you know, for, you know, I usually try, if I have something that's not they're not eating strong enough, I'll syringe them morning and night, about 12 hours. And they'll have food with them. Because what happens is if you keep the food going through them, then they will, they, they'll get to a point where the their appetite will build up. And there's some other stuff you can use too. There's something that you know called entice. And if you have another bitch that has puppies, sometimes you can swat, you know, walk, you know, do a little bit of um fostering back and forth and that kind of stuff, you know, to kind of lighten the load on that mom and see how they're doing. You have you have a you have a couple of different options with that.

SPEAKER_00 46:06

So when you have a puppy that's like maybe not a strong nurser or anything like that, and you start you know it's like I'm gonna syringe feed or I'm gonna tube feed, is it is like just trying to how how do you see that they can recover pretty quick and get strong enough to nurse again? Or you know like it seems like it's a quick process of like I'm nursing and then all of a sudden it's like didn't get enough food and now I'm weak and can't suckle and I'm not gonna nurse and I'm gonna die.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

You're gonna you're gonna go with if you're paying attention, you have a moment in time where you can tip the scales and you can bump them up, and they're either gonna grab a hold and go, or they're not.

SPEAKER_02 46:46

And those are your two options. It's gonna work or it's not. There you go. There you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 46:54

And then it's is it's like, you know, what about do you see often I th I think this is what I went through on my last one, you know, is like how often do you see like the formula that you're choosing is like, oh, maybe it upsets their stomachs, so you need to try have something else on hand or try something else. I know you mentioned goat's milk, which I think is probably, you know, if you're gonna have one on hand, probably the go-to would be have goat's milk on hand.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

But if you're breeding and you're planning ahead and you know someone that milks goats and you can freeze some cholesterol milk and all that, you're you're a superstar. You know, good for you. Um the more planning you do on this, the better. There some of the milk some of the milk replacers are better than others. You know, you have to you have to make sure you mix it right, you have to make sure you store it right, you have to make sure all of it. And then and then the better s the better product, you get better results. You know. So just you have to, you know, it should if it's if it's tearing them up, then it's not working. And that that's not that's not that's not our plan. Then we gotta switch it to something else.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

Yeah, and it's like it just goes back to like paying attention, being present, and you know, experience. Yeah, I think sometimes as a new person, it's like I don't really know what's necessarily going on here. I know something's not right, but be willing to try to do something different. Because again, if your puppy's whining, something's wrong. It's not okay.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

100%.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

You got to figure out what it is temperature, food, probably one of those two, most likely. Temperature of food. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

And it's either it's it's usually uh something to do with the mom. Like either her nipples aren't the right shape. Like I've had a couple of bitches that like like after their first this problem in Cavaliers, their first litter, and then all of a sudden, wham, they got this mambo nipple the size of your thumb. And then her next litter, she has small puppies, and they can't navigate that. You know, and I mean, I was fortunate enough in a couple of those bitches I've had like that, I would take those newborn puppies and give them to somebody that had two-week-old puppies and put the two-week-old, three-week-old puppies on the one with the big nipples, you know, just because they couldn't make those work. So sometimes you're gonna, if you were stuck with that situation, you might have to supplement those puppies till they could get big enough to make to manage those nipples, and you're gonna have to empty that bitch out. You're gonna milk her out so that that milk didn't, she didn't get a mastitis and start to dry up on you because her puppies aren't nursing, which means hot compresses and keeping that milk going, even with those massive nipples. So those are all things that you have to be observant, be present, watch for, and then make the right calls with.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

Yeah, and a lot of it is, you know, knowledge from experience. See, like contact your mentor. Like you need a mentor that's got experience, and and like you can Google all you want and come up with solutions and and all that stuff, but uh, you know, it's like your mentor knows best, and it's like I remember, you know, I called you and it was five in the morning. Like, this is what's going on with this female. We've been in labor since one, this is what we got going on, and you're just like section time, you know, and it's like we could have waited it out, or we could have just gone and got the section and got it done, and you know, this is like you just gotta follow the directions of your mentor and trust that they're leading you in the right direction if you're a newer person. So it's like have a mentor for sure, and then you know, be willing to to put your own, you know, thoughts to the side and just follow the directions of your mentor and and and be able to try certain different things too, you know.

SPEAKER_01 50:52

Well, when you're tired and stupid, you're at your very finest of your decision-making process because you are wrung out, you are stressed, and sometimes you just need to go ahead and talk to someone else and go, What do you think? And they might go, Oh, well, you're getting wet and it's raining, close the window. And you're like, never thought of that. You know, just because you're in that state, and sometimes you just need to talk to someone who's not in that state with you, and to help you assess the whole situation and you know, and go in there because it's amazing how easy it is to miss things with puppies because you're just you're not seeing it, like, oh, that puppy doesn't look like it's like it's feeling well, you know, da-da-da-da. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and temp it and then turn around like, oh, it's butt stuck shut with poop, and it probably hadn't pooped in a day and a half. Okay. So it's going down on that, and it's gonna have a distended little rectum and all of this stuff. I mean, and it's because you probably should have trimmed its butt last week and you didn't think about it because it just like it, you know, it just happens that fast. And you have that moment when you can turn it around, when you can give those little sea turtles that extra little shove to the water and like let them survive. Doesn't always work, but it works often enough. If there's not an underlying problem that's causing it, you can. They want to live, they want to survive. We talk about this with the death with a a little bit of macabre humor because none of us want them not to do well. And so you sometimes you say it like that's gonna die, just to kind of ease the pain, you know, like, okay, I just said the worst possible case scenario. And so now let's see if we can work our way away from that. So trying to keep trying to keep your yourself in tune with it. And it's I think when things start going wrong is usually when we get overly comfortable, we stop watching, we start taking things for granted, and then something really benign and stupid, like a clogged butt or she didn't eat, or this something like that, and all of a sudden, oh, you know, like did you did you feel the pad? Is the pad dry? Are these puppies wet? I mean, if you pick up your puppy and it seems like it has scald on it, well, that pad's too wet. And and puppies, it wasn't I was changing that pad three times a day. That was last week. This week they need to be changed five times a day because their output has gone up that much more. And you have to like be so conscious of the fact last week's needs are not the same as next week's needs, and you're gonna have to keep rolling that along with your the processes, how they're going.

SPEAKER_00 53:43

They change so fast, you know. It's like if you can get through the first two days and things are good, it's like you got about three days where you can be a little bit comfortable, and then they turn a week old, and it's like you know, you start changing the bedding more, and then all of a sudden eyes are open, and then you know, you're changing bedding even more, and then all of a sudden they're walking around, you know, and then they're running around. It it's like it goes quick. It's and then you start going into weaning where you're on high alert again, you know.

SPEAKER_01 54:11

It's like the two W's, whelping, weaning. That's when that's when you're gonna have the highest statistical amount of losses with your puppies. If you can get them born and get through that first 48 hours, you've got a you've got a little segue there or there to until we start to wean. And then then it gets real again where it can go, things can go south. Yeah, yeah. Welcome to dog breeding, you know. Yeah, for fun and profit. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. Sometimes it's neither fun nor profitable, but you know, we still do it and we try, and uh, everybody wants good results. And usually your results are usually your results are reflective to the work you put into it. So if you put the work into it, it goes pretty well for you. You know, you the the and sometimes you can do no work at all and still do real well, but that's not a long-term game plan.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

Some people have that luck, but generally it's the effort that you put in and it's the, it's the good, it's the the good results that keep us coming back for more and breeding more, you know. And so all right, uh, that should wrap us up for this episode of the Tack Box Podcast, episode 59. Uh, talking neonatal puppies here. So if you guys have any questions, uh anything we didn't cover that you want us to, feel free to you know message us on Facebook, send us an email, comment on this video, any one of those solutions, and we'll make sure that we get you guys handled. But thanks for for listening to this episode. Don't forget to share it with your friends, help us grow. Uh, give it a thumbs up, a like, and and all the the things on your favorite podcast network or on YouTube. And we will talk to you guys all next week. Have a great day now.