If your girl whelps early in the morning do you class that day as day1 or the next day. My girl whelped early sunday morning 3weeks ago but my son says that day 1 is the monday? what do you all think.

The day they're actually born is Day 1, just as with people! If they're born in the early hours of Sunday, then they were born on Sunday, not Monday, so Sunday is Day 1. There is never a day 0, just as there wasn't a year 0.

> just as there wasn't a year 0.

but babies have a year 0. They have to live through a whole year before they are one, so i can see the logic of puppies having to live through a whole day before they become 1 day old.

Thanks JG i thought so as well but my son thought otherwise now he knows.

>but babies have a year 0. They have to live through a whole year before they are one, so i can see the logic of puppies having to live through a whole day before they become 1 day old.

The day you're born is the first day of your life - it's day 1. By the end of Day 1 you are 1 day old. By the end of the second day you are 2 days old. When you've lived a whole year you are 1 year old.

How can you live for a whole day before the first day of your life?

Theres a difference between day one and a day old.

Day one is the first day of anything, where 1 day old is after 24 hours.

With my cats I referred to them as newborns, until 24hrs after birth.

Not sure why the question has arisen, unless it is in relation to registering them later on. In which case, some born before midnight, and the rest of the litter later can be puzzling, as in the case of one cat I had who had 3 kittens late one evening, then another two 12 hours later! How do you register those?

If that happens to me I register them on the date of the first born.

>In which case, some born before midnight, and the rest of the litter later can be puzzling, as in the case of one cat I had who had 3 kittens late one evening, then another two 12 hours later! How do you register those?

As it's a litter registration form I register the date the litter was complete - so the second date.

I had a litter born overnight and used the date most pups were born on as DOB

I had a litter born overnight and registered them all as born after midnight because it was OH birthday.

It does make a bit of difference when you are checking development stages - do you expect them to double in weight/op eyes on day 10 or at 10 days old?  Only 24 hours difference, of course.  I always use the "10 days old" as the marker.

>If that happens to me I register them on the date of the first born.

Same here, and I hadn't even stopped to think if it was correct or not!

I asked this of the kennel club having had one litter with three before and three after midnight.  As this was the 28th of Feb/1st March it would make as much as two days difference the next year or whenever the leap year fell.

I was told it didn't matter which I chose, but I couldn't use two dates for the same litter.

In the end I chose the earlier date as that would make them eligible for a show at 6 months where the next day would have made them too young.

When I was a midwife babies born before midday that was classed as day 1 and Mum would go home on day 5 with normal delivery first babies, those born after midday had to stay an extra day.

Human twins born on different days are registered according to the date they are born.

My first litter the first pup arrived at 11.40pm Xmas Eve and the other 2 on Xmas Day so they are all registered as being born on Xmas Day.

My current litter were born between 10pm and midnight, and I have  felt right form the beginning that they are sort of  a day out.  They were 1 day old almost at once!