My girl has puppies who are nearly four weeks old, she has just developed mastitis for the second time (already on antibiotics). We were up all last night making sure strong puppy suckled every 2 hours, and we have been putting on warm flannels (which she is not keen on). It seemed somewhat better this morning, but still a bit hard up by her body, it now seems to have got a bit worse. Any advice greatfully appreciated. Booked vet appointment for later today.

She is fine in herself this time (happier than yesterday).

She was producing huge ammounts of milk, so we have reduced her water intake, as we are trying to wean them too.

Sounds like more antibiotics are in order. Don't know what pills your girl is on but my one had Clavaseptin after a nasty bout of mastitis recently. Hot towel compresses didn't help her and the pups had been weaned off her for a while.  It took about 3 days for all the hardness to go. It's rotten for them and the ladies tell me it's very painful.  Hope your girl gets better soon.

My girl had mastitis in the summer, and I got some good advice from a couple of folk on this forum before I could get to the vet. Are you kneading the warm flannels? Just warm flannels isn't enough, you need to knead, as often as you can for a good few minutes. It is a kneading motion and around the teat and a couple of inches either side. Continue to place a good sucking pup on the teat. However, I will tell you that whilst I caught the mastitis early, it did take 3 weeks of antibiotics to see an improvement in the teat, so don't be too alarmed if it's not cleared up quickly.

The advice I would give is continue with the antibiotics as long as your vet thinks necessary (we also had 5 days of Metacam, vet was unwilling to recommend it for longer than that given my girl was still milking), and do the warm flannel kneading as often as you can and continue with the suckling pup. Hope she improves quickly.

Oh how I feel your pain!!!!

I'm in the middle of a bout of it now.

My large breed girl had a horrendous bout of it last time and it literally came out of nowhere within 4 hrs. She was put on a course of Clavaseptin and despite hot compresses and massage it ruptured and left a huge open hole the size of an orange. I had to put one of my bras on her and pad it with a tea towel as the vet recommended the pups to still feed. I washed it twice a day with hibiscrub and within a week it had completely healed leaving a tiny pink dot.

This time from the day of whelping I checked her thoroughly every hr on the hr and the second I noticed a slight thickening of the milk, before it was even discoloured she was straight to the vets. She was put on Clavaseptin again along with Metacam and hot flannels and massage every hr had been on it a week but it hadn't subsided so we went to the vets on Thursday and she was changed to Rilexine but the skin above and medially to the teat has just burst an hr ago. Luckily this time it is a very small neat hole. My pups were 4 weeks yesterday and are quite happily eating soaked biscuits but still want to feed from mum as well. Unfortunately once mastitis gets a hold and doesn't respond to ABs more often than not we just have to do what we can and try our hardest but inevitably it runs it course.

Thanks for all your replies. We are doing warm compresses and gently massages (every two hours throughout the night). It is not worse and pups are happily suckling from it. Vet thought it was not fully developed as she does not seem to be in pain from it and there is no inflamation showing. The last lump developed very quickly and we seem to be keeping this one at bay.

Hope the other bitches who are suffering get well soon.

> the ladies tell me it's very painful

It also made me feel very ill very quickly - within an hour i went from feeling fine to being in bed with cold sweats, shivers and feeling really fluey. It was a very scarey time .

However, women are advised to put cold cabbage leaves in their bras to help with the discomfort so i am not sure how your girl would feel about that !
And it may be that she needs a different antibiotic to clear the infection.