What would be the safest way of (temp) marking newborn pups, so you can moniter them effectivly and not get them mixed up.
Would non-toxic felt tip pen, on the tip of tail, be safe? Have read a thread about this on the board before but cannot remeber!
Thanx

We use nail varnish on the back claws to assist identification... The pups didn't appreciate the smell when we put it on their front claws.

Al

Non-toxic felt tip or food colouring on the tail tip would be fine. (doesn't get licked much by the bitch)
:)

we tried felt tip pen to mark our new pups yesterday ,when i went to weigh them no sign of any felt tip,dont know what to try now,might have a go with nail varnish,cant think of any alternative

I had to resort to clipping a little of the hair on legs when I had a litter of 4 white persian kittens (all female!!) - Mum licked off nail varnish, felt tip pen, etc - so a small clipped area on different legs helped!

Margot

Ive tried nail varnish,felt tip and food colouring with no success ! If someone could invent something that would stay on they would make a fortune!!! :)

What colour are the pups? I'm only used to white, so food colouring works (dip the tail!). I've known people use coloured rick-rack braid as collars, but I've never been daring enough to risk it.
:)

I had 6 male black lab puppies - used to weigh them almost daily but 3 always weighed the same !!!!
When they got to 4 weeks I used hospital name bands round their necks. These were very soft and pliable. I didn't like putting 'collars' on them but it was really the only way to identify them. I did try to shave little bits of hair off but their hair is so velvety that was impossible.
One advantage was that when they were older and needed proper collars, they accepted them with no fuss as they were used to the feeling.
Lorna

good idea, did you manage to get the collars easily?
i've thought of tiny collars but they seem a bigt heavy

I have a friend who breeds Newfies, and therefore she has the same problem. She uses different coloured pieces of wool round their necks, and then if the worst happens and they should get caught on anything, the wool snaps.

We cut the hair on the tails so we know whos who, so you would have a base mark on the tail which obviously would be around the base of the tail and then it goes on, a mid, tip, then if you have a big litter you might need to double up on markings so for example it would be base/tip, mid/tip, base/mid and if it is really unlucky it could be base/mid and tip marking, its easy to do and they are easily recognisable with these markings they just need to be done every time the hair grows back.

we used nail varnish on our GSPS and it worked quite well. Just had to renew every couple of days as they got older.
Sue

you can buy different colour tags from snooze and snack trade stand that most shows.

Does anyone know where you can buy the collars they use on dogs in the vets (like the wrist bands they use on people in hospital) they might work!
My dogs are Golden russet (Ginger) so nothing shows on them!!! :)