Orchard Rose Boxers and Bulldogs

orchard-rose-boxers.co.uk

If you are thinking of breeding your boxer, especially if its for the first time for you both the most important thing you will need is good help, advice and support. The support is critical. Many big kennels who widely advertise their stud dogs will be only to happy to take you money and help you through the actual mating but there it ends. A flashy web site and good advertising are often indications to be careful, few people advertise their failures. Try to speak to other people who have used the same breeder

Where you need the real support is through the whelping, this is where choosing the right stud dog owner is critical as they will also become your mentor, and many, many people who first meet under these circumstance become life long friends.

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Guidelines if you would like to breed your bitch  

Boxers

 Little bulldogs

First of all, check with your vet that she is in good health and that he cannot hear a heart murmur.  Get her booster inoculations and worming done before she comes into season.

Look around for a stud dog as soon as you decide to breed her.  Check that he is sound both in health and temperament and that he has been heart-tested with a score of either 0 or 1. Ask to see proof or check the list on the internet (www.boxerbreedcouncil.co.uk/heartlist.htm)   Decide what colour puppies you would like to have (for the last few years, the demand for red/white puppies far exceeds the demand for brindles). 

Also, last but certainly not least, choose a stud dog owner who you can build up a rapport with, and who you will feel relaxed about contacting at any time of the day or night, and who will answer your questions throughout the pregnancy. 

For some stud dog owners, once the mating has taken place, that is really the end of their involvement, but breeding a much loved pet bitch is very worrying, and I am very pleased to be on the end of a phone with help and reassurance.  I have had many midnight calls for help and often rushed across the county to give a hand at whelping.   I think that is a very important part of owning a stud dog.

GENERAL PREGNANCY GUIDELINES

Do not give any flea treatments (drops, shampoos, sprays or flea collars).  If your bitch picks a flea up and you can’t comb it out, then try and leave it until a couple of days before the puppies are due an use a spray recommended by your vet for pregnant bitches (eg Frontline) and wash it off with baby shampoo after about 24 hours.

Do not give any worming treatments (occasionally a vet will recommend Panacur during pregnancy – it should be fine, but very few breeders will worm during pregnancy).  I prefer not to give any chemicals at all.

PREGNANCY CALENDAR

Week 1 and 2 (days 1 – 14)

Carry on with her normal life – walks, food etc.  There will be no physical changes to see in your bitch, but you may notice she is slightly quieter and becomes more loving towards you.

Week 3 (days 15 – 21)

For the first 16 days the fetuses will float free within the uterine horns.  At about day 16 from fertilization (not necessarily the actual day of mating), the fetuses will fix on the wall of the uterine horns.  They are too tiny to feel or see on a scan until about day 21, when they are the size of a pea.  Don’t try and feel them because you will not succeed, and prodding around may do some damage.

You may notice that her ribs look broader now.  Also her vulva will still be enlarged.  If you look closely you may see a very very slight, almost transparent, sticky discharge.

From day 21 start giving Dene’s raspberry leaf tablets – one in the morning and one in the evening.  A good alternative is Hilton Herbs Birth Aid.

Week 4 (day 22 – 28)

Still not too much to see!  Her teats will be enlarging a little, and overall she will look slightly rounder.  The pups are not much bigger than 3 or 4 cm each at this stage, and they are spaced out along the two horns of the uterus.  Again, don’t try to feel them because you won’t – they are like gristle. 

She may go off her food around this time and may even be sick occasionally.  Try to keep her eating a reasonable amount, even if you have to tempt her with tasty food.  It is only temporary and her appetite will return with a vengeance within a week or so.

Week 5 (day 29 – 35)

She will become more protective of herself as the weeks go by.  Try to ensure that she doesn’t play too violently with other dogs, and it is not a good idea for her to leap from heights!  However, make sure she still takes plenty of exercise.

If she seems to be hungrier, you can increase the amount of food you give her, especially the amount of protein.  If you are feeding a complete food it would be a good idea to change to the puppy variety (or some brands have a prestige or high quality variety).  You may notice that, particularly after a meal, she looks slightly swollen behind the ribs.  Her ribcage will be getting even wider as well.

Week 6 (days 36 – 42)

By this time there will be no doubt that she is pregnant.  Even if she is having a small litter, the teats in a pregnant bitch develop a lot more than they do when a bitch has a phantom pregnancy.  You will also notice that her vulva is getting softer and larger.

On day 42 the uterine horns fold to accommodate the size of the growing fetuses, and you may notice a change in her shape when you look at her sideways.  She will lose her “tuck-up” behind the ribs.  If you have been giving folic acid, you can stop it at the end of this week.

Week 7 (days 43 – 49)

It is a good idea to split the normal two meals per day into three.  As her stomach swells it will be uncomfortable for her to eat a big meal.  You may also notice a big increase in her thirst, so make sure she has fresh water down all the time.  Increase the raspberry leaf tablets to 2 in the morning and 2 in the evening.

Her teats will be very defined by now, and you will notice that she has lost the hair around them. 

Week 8 (days 50 – 56)

You may notice the puppies moving in her stomach when she is lying down on her side.  If she is really heavy with puppies, she may start lying on her stomach instead as it becomes too uncomfortable to roll over onto her side.

Introduce the bitch to her whelping box between 10 and 14 days before the pups are due.  To begin with you may have to put her usual bed in it to get her to go in it.  Some bitches never go in it before the pups are born.  Don’t worry about this, let her have her first puppy in her usual bed if she wants, and as soon as it is born, put it into the whelping box and she will follow it in with no further problems.

She may become rather picky with her food now.  I find at this time my bitches eat Naturediet quite happily and it is a balanced quality food so can be fed on its own.  Sometimes the addition of pilchards, sardines, chicken, cooked fish etc encourages a bitch to eat at the end of a pregnancy, but I have most success with Naturediet.

Week 9 (days 57 – 63)

Make sure you have everything ready a few days before the pups are due.  You will need lots of small towels (I always use old toweling tea-towels), a small pair of scissors, a couple of hot water bottles, plenty of newspaper, a torch and a packet of baby wipes for your hands.   You will also need a large bottle of liquid calcium, a tin of puppy milk (Whelpi, Skinners, Litterlac etc) and a baby’s feeding bottle and teat (this is the right size for a boxer puppy).  

Cover the base of the whelping box with several layers of newspaper and put a new, washed, vetbed on top.  Allow her to whelp onto the fleece, the pups will be warmer and quieter, and it is very easy to wash clean after the whelping. 

Puppies can be born 5 days early or up to about 3 days late, but boxers usually whelp within a day or so of the expected date.  A fairly good guide is that if she eats her dinner, she probably won’t whelp during the next 24 hours (but there are exceptions to this!).  You can take her temperature if you wish.  It goes down to about 37.5 during the last week, and then drops to 36.5 when labour

is imminent.  It often only stays down for a few hours though, so you should take it at least twice a day or you could miss the drop.

She may scratch and dig around in the whelping box or her bed quite often during the last few days.  From about 24 hours before labour starts she will go outside and pass frequent little poos – often quite dark in colour.  She will also become very quiet and self-absorbed.

When labour starts she will pant and be quite restless.  She may lick her front feet frequently and clean herself over and over.  This panting stage can go on for many hours.  Be sure that it is increasing in strength – although she may have periods when she goes into a deep sleep and then starts panting again.  She may also shiver from time to time.  At this stage the bed-making can get quite frantic.  Don’t leave her, she will want the reassurance of your presence.

There may be a slight loss of fluid and mucous at this time, as long as it is clear it doesn’t matter.  But when you see a gush of fluid, or a big plum-coloured bubble appears which bursts, you should see the first puppy arrive within 2 or 3 hours.  Wait no longer than 3 hours if it doesn’t – contact your vet (no matter what the hour of the day or night!).

Placental blood changes to a dark green colour when exposed to the air.  You don’t want to see any dark green liquid until the first pup is being born.   If she should pass this without any sign that the first pup is imminent, get her to the vet fast as it usually means a puppy in distress.  After the first puppy has been born there will be green stains all over the vetbed!! 

When the first puppy is about to be born, she will be very restless and keep looking at her back end.  She may give little cries.  You will see her strain and relax – each contraction being slightly stronger as the puppy moves down.  Just before the puppy arrives, you will see her tail rise when she strains and a bulge will appear under the tail - this is the puppy.  The bulge may slip back until the next contraction, when it will come down further.

It will probably be encased in a membrane as it emerges.  Lean over and break the membrane around the pup’s face with your fingernails.  Gently put a finger in its mouth and if it snorts or makes a noise, all is well and you can sit back and let the bitch take over.  If the placenta (afterbirth) hasn’t come out with the pup, grip the umbilical cord well away from the pup and gently ease it out.  Sometimes the cord breaks before you can get to it – don’t worry the placenta will probably come with the next puppy.  It is quite normal for puppies to be born either head or feet first – a breech birth is bottom first.

If the puppy makes no noise (especially if it arrives out of the sac), then squeeze the cord and break it with your thumb nail (this matches the gnawing motion of the bitch when she breaks it), pick up the puppy and holding it face down rub it hard in a towel.  Fluid will run out of its mouth and nose.  Then swoop the pup through the air fast, face first, to force air down into its lungs.  Also put your finger down its throat to try and activate the gagging reflex.  It may take several tries before it gives a weak gasp and you will see the oxygen changing its blue mouth to pink.  As soon as it is breathing well, give it back to mum, who will lick it and roll it around very roughly.  This is nature’s way of getting the circulation going. 

Towards the end of the litter, a pup is sometimes quite tired when it is born and needs a bit more encouragement to sustain productive breathing.  In this instance keep rubbing it gently in a towel, all the time holding it near a radiator to keep it very warm, until you are sure it will continue to breathe on its own.  It can take up to half an hour to get a puppy breathing steadily, but usually it only takes minutes. 

As soon as you can, encourage the pup onto a teat so it can start feeding – the back four are usually the best.  Also, this gets the first pups settled in one place and out of the way while the later pups are being born.  While the mum only has the first puppy, she will keep licking it and so it will keep getting knocked off the teats.  She will be so proud that she just can’t leave it alone.

She should have the puppies at intervals of no more than 2 to 2½ hours – although sometimes halfway through there can be a slightly longer break.  She may sleep between pups.  But if there is a gap of any more than 3 hours, contact your vet WITHOUT DELAY. 

If things seem to slow up, put her collar and lead on and get her out of the box and walk her round the garden (she won’t be happy about this because she won’t want to leave the pups).  This sometimes gets things going again.  DON’T LET HER GO OUT ON HER OWN, AND IF IT IS DARK ALWAYS TAKE A TORCH.  Bitches sometimes pass a puppy without realizing it when they go to the loo.  I have lost count of the people who have said thank goodness I told them this because they would never have realised their bitch had produced a pup in the garden otherwise.

When the bitch has finished whelping, her whole demeanour will change, and she will relax.  Take her out to the garden to go to the loo, replace the newspaper and the vetbed, and settle her with a drink of puppy milk made to adult consistency.   Keep the room temperature at no lower than 75 degrees if you can for the first two weeks because newborn puppies cannot regulate their body temperature.  If you can sit comfortably in a short sleeved t-shirt the temperature is about right.  If you think the temperature is not high enough, cover the top of the whelping box with a blanket and, in winter, keep a couple of fairly warm hot water bottles wrapped in pillowcases under the fleece. 

Next day, weigh and identify each puppy.  With a large litter you will think you will never tell them apart – believe me, you will after a day or so.  Then weigh them again each day.  If one does not put on at least 1oz per day, you must ensure you put that puppy onto one of the best teats each time as they all start to feed (it is no good putting it on after the others have fed).  If any pup seems to be falling behind the others despite your continually putting it on the best teats, then it would be a good idea to also top it up with a proprietary puppy milk.  If it is feeding from the mum, don’t give more than 25ml formula at each feed as you want it to still be keen to feed from the mum.  Also, if you give too much milk it can be regurgitated and get into the lungs causing pneumonia.  Too much of the mum’s milk doesn’t appear to cause this problem – only formula milk.   This way, while the pup may be rather small at weaning time, it will be alive. 

Check all the teats daily.  Squeeze a drop of milk from each teat onto a paper kitchen towel.  Any change in colour or consistency from one teat and go immediately to the vet.  This will give you a good head start in treating mastitis before it sets in.  Similarly, if a teat becomes hard, but the milk is still good, massage that udder with cloths soaked alternately in hot and cold water and try to draw some of the milk off. 

A good rule of thumb is that from about 2 weeks of age boxer puppies should weigh 1lb for each week of their age plus 1lb.  Thus a 2-week old pup should ideally weigh 3lb, but in a big litter they will obviously get less milk each and therefore weigh less.  Keep a very close eye on things for the first week or so – I sleep in the room with the mum and pups for the first 2 weeks at least. 

A bitch feeding a litter will eat up to 5 times her usual amount of food, and she will not want to leave the pups, so give her the food in the whelping box for the first week or so.  Give her a daily dose of liquid calcium spread out through the day in the amount specified on the bottle (no more than stated) until the pups are weaned.  This helps replace the vast amount of calcium expended by the nursing bitch.

Good luck