What makes a good dam?

So far, all is going as well as one could wish!

Rowan is being a super mom. She is doing her job as well as can be expected.

What makes a good dam:

1) Firstly it is helpful if she has sufficient milk for the number of puppies produced. It can take a few days for the milk to come in and sometimes the first couple of days, pups can be fussy as they are hungry. You can supplement pups with diluted goat's milk or commerical puppy formula if they seem truly to be lacking, but it's still best to leave them with mom, even if you are helping out - the nursing they do will help bring the milk in. In bitches who've had a c-section the milk can take even longer to come in as the hormones released during delivery help stimulate milk production. Other things that are important to milk production are proper nutrition (mom should be getting good sources of fat & protein) and sufficient water intake. Mom should be drinking a great deal - if she's not, you can add water to her meals to help with that. I tend to make my dam's meals a bit like breakfast cereal with large quantities of water or goat's milk added to the kibble and other supplements (such as cottage cheese, boiled eggs and other protein sources)

2) Secondly, it is her job to keep the puppies clean and to help them eliminate their waste. Dirty puppies are not very desirable and cleanliness is always best for healthy pups. Mom will usually clean up the pups while they are nursing or shortly afterward. Often she will turn them all around with her muzzle, sometimes having them lie on their back or flipping them all around as she licks and nudges them. There is generally a certain amount of protesting about this, but the stimulus is good for them. As they get larger and begin to struggle more, you can often see mom pinning the pups with one paw and cleaning them.

3) It is important that the pups be kept warm. They cannot maintain their body temperature for the first couple of weeks, so between the dam and the breeder the pups must be kept very warm. I find dams who deliver pups in cold weather spend more time in the box, huddled with their pups to keep them warm. The pups will sleep in large piles and cuddle up to keep warm. A heating pad and/or a heat lamp are helpful in colder weather. As these pups have been born in July, and it's not really been hot or humid enough for us to run the air conditioners, these pups have been warm enough with their heat lamp alone, and often can be seen sprawled separately around the box. Clearly they are warm enough.

4) The dam must be CAREFUL. She should be aware enough of her pups not lie or step on them. Puppies are very resilient so an occasional mom foot on their tail or feet isn't likely to injure them, and usually she will jump back as soon as they squeak, but it can be very dangerous for her to lay on them as they can become smothered. This is the purpose of the "pig rail" around the inside of the box - it prevents mom from squashing pups against hte side of the box. Rowan has be quite careful about this and will often collect the pups into a pile in the center of the box and then lie down behind them. She will carefully tuck in her front paws as she does this and sort of slide down, ending up with the pups all between her front legs.

The dam will have other things to do as the pups get bigger - more "mental" mothering jobs, but for now, these are her tasks. Rowan is doing a super job and making my life very easy - I am not particularly concerned for the pups health or welfare at this point, altho I'm monitoring what I can to keep aware of how they are doing.