Can anyone tell me why Mum feels the urge to make a complete mess of the bedding upon which her babies (4 days old)  are lying?  In all these years of breeding, I have dealt with this frustrating behavior without ever having the slightest idea what it means.  For about the first three weeks, my puppies (bichon breed) and their Mum are in a wonderful big box (British-made), which protects them from everything and provides Mum with a great deal of safety and comfort.  Half of the box is covered with a good piece of vetbed, firmly secured under the back piece of the box as well as the dividing piece. The other half of the box is laid out with clean newspaper, which serves as a place to put water and food, a solution for a night-time "emergency" (in case Mum just can't hold it any longer) and as a place for Mum to relax and cool off.   Anyhow: I have often faced the most ridiculous scenario in the morning:  vetbed blanket in a pile, puppies under it on the bare floor of the box, the whole box in a seemingly-happy turmoil.  And this morning (actually in the middle of the night when I got up to check, and then again this morning), the newspapers were absolutely shredded!  As if they had been through a shredder!  (Well, almost...)  What causes this?  Some atavistic impulse?  Pain?  Does anyone know?  The babies always seem to survive this maternal housekeeping, but I do wish I knew how to interpret it.

Discomfort.  I now, after once coming back into the room from a loo break, to find pups under the vetbed and bitch on top,  don't put the vetbed in until pups eyes open and just use a thick layer of shredded paper from my paper shredder.

I would be sleeping by the whelping box.  Puppies can easily get accidentally buried by mum and suffocate...

It is a response to the uterus contracting back down to size and a way mum deals with pain.  It can sometimes be helped by giving calcium if it's related to slightly low calcium levels.

Smiled when I read your post Nimue.    Normal! 

I've always put it down to pain.  Totally get where you're coming from though - you do everything right, think how lovely it all looks, then the bitch just totals it!

>Puppies can easily get accidentally buried by mum and suffocate...<

Well, of course I have thought of that in the past 25 years.  That's why I never put anything into the whelping box which could suffocate a puppy (only vetbed), and with the mothers, being so small, this does not seem to be a problem.  Been watching for all those years.