Bitch not accepting puppies - please help - Page 1

I'm posting this for a friend, 

Her female, had a C section today and is now not accepting the puppies.  

Anyone have experience with this?

Thank you for any and all your help.

I'm not sure what to do to get her to accept them. Is this the first litter? Are ya'll bottle feeding? Poor thing, hope it gets better

PATIENCE...and supervision.  I have had many bitches with c section wake up and not understand where the hell the puppies came from.  Until I see bonding and acceptance, I never leave the bitch alone with the puppies.  Basically I have the bitch in a very quiet very low stress area.  I lay with her and encourage her to clean puppies and allow them to nurse.  The longest it has taken is 3 days and it is work.  I praise all maternal behavior.  It is really obvious when it kicks in.

I had a bitch last week that had to have c section for 1 puppy.  She had no milk.  She also did not bond with the puppy.  She was not aggressive towards the puppy just not maternal.  I tube fed the puppy initially to keep it strong.  It kept nursing and slowly she began to start cleaning it and after 3 days her milk came in full power.  That is the longest it every took.  I would say normally with a c section it takes about 24 hours to really get them to bond and be maternal.

I cannot emphasise enough to not allow the puppies alone with her until you see normal maternal behavior.  You may have to tube feed them and help them with elimination a little to keep them strong and healthy until she cares for them properly.

The mom and puppies should be watched around the clock--do not leave mom alone with pups. Often, once the sedation wears off, the mom will accept the pups. Do what you need to do to get the pups fed at least the colostrum--muzzle mom if you have to. Stay within arm's reach at all times that mom is with the pups and remove them and put them somewhere warm if you can't be there to watch them. They will need to be supervised full time if they are together as long as mom is not accepting the pups.

In a recent conversation I had with a repro vet about c-sections and new moms, the vet said that almost always the mom's instincts will turn on within about 2 days.

It may be necessary to tube feed or bottle feed pups if they are not able to nurse.

Christine

Your vet should have let the puppies get their first milk while mom was under sedation in case she does not accept them at all so they had some Colosseum at least ,use muzzle or put your hand between mom's head and puppies  all the time when feeding in case and  keep mom  away and distracted from puppies by offering tasty  treat  with other hand that she can't refuse  if she is aggressive dog

What the others said! You MUST supervise, and be very careful! Do NOT leave her alone with the pups.

My friend's bitch had a c-section last year. The mother seemed to be licking the pup and bonding with it. Then she bit it so hard she punctured its lung. It happened so fast that there was nothing the owner was able to do to prevent it. It died a few hours later.

Usually once the mother's milk has passed through the pup's body, and she can smell her own odour in its feces, she will be okay. Try your best to get the pups to nurse so this can happen. As others said, the COLOSTRUM (note correct spelling) which is the first milk the mother produces, is VERY important in giving the pup immunity to disease, and getting it off to a good start in life.

If she does not seem to have enough milk, you will have to supplement with milk replacer, either by bottle or stomach tube. It is VERY important to weigh the pups daily to make sure they are getting enough nourishment.

I hope you can find an experienced breeder to help you through this. It's a very difficult situation to be in.

Thanks everyone for your responses.   The vet did have her nurse after the C section.    Hopefully things will be better today for them.

Tardy to the party, but co-sign on what everyone else has told you already--especially Sunsilver's recounting of how *fast* an unwilling bitch can injure a newborn pup...went through it once myself, and the pups nursed @ the vet's before we brought them all back, too.  Once we got the bitch home and settled into the nest, and started putting the pups in with her, things changed fast--and she seriously injured 3 of her 6 pups quicked than we could snatch them back from the nest.  She got two of them in the skull, and there was gray matter visibly oozing from the punctures; she got the third in the ribcage, puncturing the lung. The first two lived, though both had brain damage, remained at the level of an adolescent for the whole of their lives, and both developed epilepsy when they were about 3 years old, eventually going into status epilepticus and dying. The punctured lung pup died about a week later. The bitch never did accept the other pups, and we put them on a foster bitch who had weaned her own pups about a week earlier; she was partially dried up already, though, so we tube-fed them in addition to letting them nurse the foster, and foster momma took care of the cleaning and educating.  The three uninjured pups did matured uneventfully, and the bitch went on to whelp and raise a few more litters with no problems (just as she had with the litter before the c-section one).

I hope things improved for your friend, Rezkat, but in all honesty I think this is going to be a hand-raised litter unless a willing foster dam can be found that's still fully in milk. :(

Things have gotten much much better.   She really needed that 24 hours after the C section to come around.   

Thank you for the replies.

excellent!

have fun watching them grow!