My 3 yr old boxer had her first litter a week ago, only 3 pups, but all healthy and thriving. Mum is still digging and nesting in the garden and seems restless, she has lifted one of the pups out of her whelping box on one occasion. She finds it difficult to settle in her box, she can't spread out like she normally would and is still panting alot. She gets restless at night and seems to want to join the family in the lounge, but paces to and fro to her box. I brought the pups into the lounge last night and she fell asleep to the point where I had to wave a pup under her nose to wake her! Once the house is quiet, she sleeps in her box all night. Am a bit worried, don't want her to get stressed and abandon pups, am sure she'd have them in a bush in the garden given half a chance.

Hi Kerry,

She may just be too hot and uncomfortable with the humid weather we've had recently - hence feeling like she'd rather move the puppies to a cooler and more spacious area.  However restlessness can be a sign of problems so it would be best to have your vet check her over in the morning.  All being well after he's examined her, then can you provide a larger area for her to be in with the pups by putting a play pen around the whelping box so that she can't wander off and leave them entirely but can move away from them?  That way you could perhaps set a fan up at a level where it would blow gently on her but not blow directly onto the pups.  This is always assuming of course that your area of the country is suffering from humidity.

When you say she wants to join the family in the lounge - do you mean she doesn't have anyone sitting in with her all the time?  At just a week old I would not have left my bitch unattended with her puppies at all, even though she was a great mum.  The bitch could roll onto one and accidentally crush it (pig rails don't help if this happens in the centre of the whelping box :( ) so really mum and litter should be supervised constantly and later (around 3 weeks +) when mum is spending longer periods out of the whelping box, you could just have a baby monitor with you so that you can hear that all's well with the pups and return mum to them if they're being noisy. 

Hope all is OK on her check up and that it's merely this muggy weather (which is making us all out of sorts).  Please update when you can and of course good luck!  Regards, Teri :)

Hi there my bordeaux gave birth 6 weeks ago she panted non stop for the first 2 weeks she was also very restless and bleeding , I think its the bull breeds that suffer from this heavy panting after birth she is most probably still recovering from the strain of the birth and still getting rid of all the waste.