First Days of a Puppy Life

The adventure starts at the mother's abdomen. Like all mammals, till delivery puppies live in complete calm, without worrying about food or temperature, and without any danger. The same cannot be said of the mother that passes through a delicate period, and is nervous, tired and overweight.

The Place for Delivery: If we decide that delivery should take place at home, ten days before we'll have to prepare a functional "delivery room", consisting of a wooden box of 1 x 1 m.. Three of its sides of 50 c, height, while the other must have something to hang a lath to impede the puppies going out. The mother has to go in and out easily from the box, but the puppies must remain inside. The interior must be smooth, with no rough parts, nails or fissures; the newborns can't see, but they can walk around. In the box place a towel or newspapers, always in small pieces to prevent a puppy getting trapped in one of them and suffocate. The mother, scratching and biting will help in the building of a safe "nest", though we must check everything is in place.

We must have some clean towels or newspaper since the mother and the puppies will remain inside some fifteen days, and you should clean it daily. Towles or rags used for delivery must be thrown out and never used again. Therefore, once delivery ends, we will replace it with a clean smooth towel or rag, that must be perfectly fasten by the sides, to prevent puppies to get beneath it. To fix it you can use adhesive tape, but never clamps or metallic points.

Here we are: Now the situation turns upside down: the mother is calm, proud of her puppies, while they start fighting for life. And it is a hard fight for puppies, though at the beginning they just sleep and eat. In this first stage of their life, that etologs call vegetative phase, puppies start to learn. They also use their senses to get food, that is, for survival.