We have a bitch at work who gave birth last week..the wee dog was a stray and spent her first week with us in the vet..she whelped several days after coming back. Bitch quite poor condition and vet says she has milk but only just enough for maybe the first week...her milk seemed to come in with good feeding and milk supplement. However yesterday and today she was caught growling and pushing pups off her teats...she had damaged two pups one which had to be PTS...it seemed when they were squealing for food she would turn on them...

Vet told us to take them from her so we did. Now we have a bitch whose pups taken off her yesterday...they were well on to solids and her teats were huge since she only had 3....we tried the new pups with her and she seems to have taken well to them. She was always a relaxed mum kept her distance but also made sure her pups were clean and fed and warm....well we started with one pup...she cleaned it's bum so we put to to a teat and she let it nurse....so we added the rest one by one and she seems to accept they are now hers to look after.

I thought she was a bit disinterested in them for a  time...but I wanted to check the rest for injuries and when one squeaked...the new mum was quite protective wanting to know what I was doing and pushing in etc....

I thought it seemed to easy....was it?  Was the fact her teats were so full and she was missing her pups being taken from her yesterday that made her so willing...or is she just a good mum do you reckon...
Someone will be checking her during the night but I can't wait to see how she did overnight...

Cheers
J

I don't know but I do hope it works out! Ellie nearly ended up being foster mum to a friend of a friend's puppies after her bitch had to had a major op and nearly died, but though in some ways it would have been nice for Hetty to have had others to play with, albeit a few weeks younger, on the whole it was as well that a third friend had a bitch that they tried first, I would have been scared of the responsibility of having someone else's puppies!

Our bitch once took on 3 puppies after another breeder in our breed had lost their bitch during a section.  We did the same as you and let my bitch have a good sniff and clean and then she nudged them towards her teats and as soon as they started feeding she gave the breeder of the pups(who'd lost his bitch) a low growl and stare to warn him to keep away as they were her babies now!lol.  She was a fantastic mum to her foster babies(her own pups were 5 weeks old when we did this) for 4weeks and then weaning(and me!) took over.