Have a dog that's a new mother, question.

Unread post by **Moore** » Fri May 20, 2011 7:37 am

My smallest chihuahua had two babies yesterday, one died, and the other is seemingly fine. My question is this mom dog seems to want to get away from her puppy more-so than my other chihuahua who has been a mom before. This one is feeding her puppy and all that, and is being very protective it's just odd to me that she will sometimes walk down stairs and go to sleep on the couch rather than with her puppy. My other dog would spend almost all her time with her puppies. Is this something to worry about? I'm watching and making sure she's feeding the puppy and if she doesn't then I'll do whatever the next best thing is which is I guess buying something, though I'm not sure if you can buy stuff to feed the puppy that has the appropriate nourishment for the pup. Good news is that this puppy seems healthy, makes a lot of noise all the time, to which the mother dog does respond too. I just thought it was odd that she wouldn't want to be near her puppy 24/7 like my other dog.

Unread post by **Cerele** » Fri May 20, 2011 7:40 am

maybe its just the inexperience?
my cats did almost the same thing, one had a litter of 3 kittens and they were never out of her sight,
the other had one kitten and she almost was never with it, but thankfully the first cat took it as her own

Unread post by **Moore** » Fri May 20, 2011 7:47 am

That's what I was thinking too, but I wanted to be sure, cause I'll hand feed this lil pup if I have too. Just worried about it. My other chihuahua visits the puppy when it cries as well and I get the impression she wants to take care of it, but I've been keeping her at bay.

Unread post by **zedxrgal** » Fri May 20, 2011 12:27 pm

This is completely normal and nothing to worry about. As long as she is feeding the puppy every couple hours then it will be fine. You can put a heating pad in the puppies box and a stuffed animal which will help comfort it.
There is puppy formula available to buy at any pet store along with bottles. I suggest you pick some up if she's not feeding the puppy every two hours or so and you can pick up her slack.

Sometimes bonding takes time to so try and have the mother stay with the puppy. What may also help is putting the puppy and mom in a dog crate and separating them from everyone and everything else. New moms can stress easily and abandon puppies if there's to many other people or animals around because it's unsafe in their eyes. And if you're other female dog is more dominant that to could be creating some issue for the new mom.

Try separating them and giving the new mom and puppy their own space and see if that helps.

Unread post by **Moore** » Fri May 20, 2011 12:43 pm

My other female dog doesn't seem like she's dominant, I think it's more because she had puppies too a couple months or so ago, and now she hears this baby puppy crying and reacts.

But I did give him my stuffed Felix The Cat doll to sleep with so he had something in his little puppy bed with him and that made it so he stopped crying for the most part.

Since the little puppy is right outside my door in a dog bed where she had him, I can easily watch and see the routines so I'll just keep keeping an eye out then.

Unread post by **Mozag** » Fri May 20, 2011 4:31 pm

One of my dogs had two puppies many years ago, and we used to be amazed at how uninterested she was in them. She took great care of all their needs: fed them, kept them clean, went to them as soon as they made any noises out of the ordinary. But really, that was the extent of her interest. As soon as they were fed and sleeping, she would ditch them and come cuddle with me. Also, I never did manage to find out a way to make her sleep next to them at night. The puppies were left to their own devices (except for feeding times), while the mother slept in my bed blissfully, as she had done before the puppies, and continued to do after. She was also clearly bored by feeding times, but went through it with this vaguely pained and bored expression. It probably caused a few premature grey hairs for me, faffing about with the hot water bottles and staying up for hours per night to make sure they weren't dying, but really, in the end they both grew up to be lovely, healthy dogs and the mummy dog did me proud.

Many years later, when I had my first child, my mother compared my mothering to our dog's in the early days. She said I took care of his needs perfectly, but otherwise seemed "distant". That changed after a few months of course, but I think it was purely the exhaustion of those sleepless nights, the shock of being in charge of a small person, and learning to bond with someone completely new that made it that way in the first days. And I bet it's the same for dogs!

Unread post by **Wain** » Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:01 am

I've seen so much variation in dog mothering over the years, just like human parenting. Some spend the minimal time, others are so fiercely protective they won't even let people they know and trust near the pups. It's weird, but it's normal.

We also had one old bitch that was way past having pups. But she'd have phantom pregnancies and the other dogs would actually let her be wet nurse to their pups. It was very cool.

A couple of things to consider. If it's getting uncomfortably warm where she is she's more likely to spend less time with the pup. So if it's summer maybe she's just trying to keep both of them cool by staying away. The other thing is if she's very attached to you, maybe she's getting very anxious being away. Maybe she'd spend more time with the pup if you moved her bed to be near you just now and then, like when you're watching tv or playing WoW

Unread post by **Moore** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 5:43 am

The puppy is doing fine now, shes up and walking around always following me though shes so tiny (duh chihuahua) that I have to be real careful walking around. She falls asleep when I'm sitting in a chair watching TV really sweet puppy; shes up and trying to eat dry dog food now even. Will post a pic of her later

Unread post by **Wain** » Wed Jul 06, 2011 8:20 am

Awww

Glad she's doing well

Unread post by **Moore** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 5:54 pm

Removed img for now D:

Here's a picture I took of her hanging out in front of the fridge.

Unread post by **Silivren** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 7:57 pm

/SQUEE!!!! OMG!!! Shes so cute!!!! Does she have a name?

the puppy

Unread post by **Moore** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:15 pm

Yeah her name is Molly, it's funny when shes standing there I can go Hey Molly, RUN RUN RUN and she starts running it's more like a hop and sometimes she runs diagonally

.

Unread post by **Silivren** » Thu Jul 07, 2011 9:01 pm

Awww you must video tape this little bunny hop

Unread post by **Wain** » Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:46 am

She's gorgeous

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