Hi EVERYONE
More advise needed i am afraid! My pups are now a week old and all seem fine and happy although last night my bitch seemed really reluctant to get in and feed them. Her very back boob(sorry dont know the correct term) is very large compared to the others. I know the back ones are usually larger but this one was rreally large compared to the one next to it. and the one behind it. Most of her boobs are unevenly sized now But should i be worried? I have checked again this morning and it has gone down slighlt but is still larger than the rest. Is this just milk or could something be wrong?

Is the boob (mamary gland) that is bigger than the others much hotter or harder than the others? Is it painful for her if you touch it? It is possible that she has mastitis or be heading for it. Peanut got mastitis in her first (and my first) litter and had to go on antibiotics and it also caused an abscess which broke through the skin. Two litters later I had far more experience. Pumpkin looked as if she was about to get mastitis so I put her on her back on my knee (I have very small dogs you might have to find another position) and got one of the puppies and persuaded it to suckle on the large boob. Pumpkin hated it at first but it worked, once the puppy had taken away quite a bit of the milk that boob was far less painful and we had no further trouble. Incidentally I swapped puppies after a while to make sure we emptied the gland.

Another thing that can help is too put a warm compress on the area - pressing a cloth or piece of towel soaked in hot water against the area can help to relieve the pressure.

Hope all goes on ok.

Joan
Take the rough with the smooth

HI Joan

It does not appear to be, as they all feel slightly hard near to her body? Again i dont know if that is normal, But she let me feel it last night and wasnt unduly concerned. Do you think i should take her to the vets or try compress first this evening when i get home? She seems quite happy in general, as she now comes out to the lounge at intervals through out the evening i wondered if they were just overful as she had stayed away to long?

Hi, have you trimmed the puppies nails? They have very sharp hooks on them which can discourage a bitch from feeding them. Easiest way to take them off is to use small human nail clippers and have someone else hold the puppy up, close to theri body, facing you, with the hind legs hanging down.Then you can pick up each paw in turn and take all the hooks off - dont forget the dew claws if they still have them.

Hiya,

This happened with my girl a few weeks ago. I noticed that she was reluctant to feed the pups. So I had a look, and one of her mammary glands, at the back, was very hot and hard. It was obviously painful for her, and she wouldn't let the pups near her.

I lay her on her side, and put a warm, damp towel on the mammary gland...while I was doing this she fell asleep...so she couldn't have been in that much pain...she's just a wimp!! anyway, after about 5 minutes, I managed to extract some of the milk myself, although it was difficult at first. I think she was probably gong to end up with mastitis, but this seemed to work.
It's worth a try.....if thats no good, a visit to the vet is in order I think.

Hope all goes well, good luck with Mom and the pups.

Lisa