Hi, Would anyone who breeds be able to give me some advise please. I have an 8 day old puppy who appears to be constipated. By using wet cotton wool around the bum area and rubbing the tummy, I did manage to get her to go in the early hours of this morning. But this was after her straining and it was only a little and very hard. Since then she hasn't been and, I have for the pass few hours been giving her cooled boiled water via a syringe. I have also tried the olive oil up the bum treatment but to no avail. Not surprisely, she is not feeding from mum (I have also tried feeding her mums milk with a syringe but without success). Vet says she looks ok but too young to do anything. I really do not know what to try next. Your help and advise would be appreciated. Thank you

You could try brown sugar with the cooled boiled water for the puppy, i would also put the sugar into mums water bowl for a couple days too, this was recommended by a vet & worked for my constipated pup. Liquid paraffin, just a drop or 2 depending on size of pup works too! Are you giving your bitch any puppy milk? I beat an egg & add puppy milk & cereal like weetabix or porridge made really runny, this will also be beneficial to mum & pups! Good luck.

I would suggest a proper electrolyte drink for the bitch &supplement the puppy with the same to rehydrate it. I would never give any puppy Weetabix as there is no useful nutrition in it & it doesn't have fibre suitable for a puppy.

Constipation is usually caused by dehydration & ergo the puppy needs fluids like electrolyte(you can buy this on the net from pet pharmacies) & watered down milk.

The weetabix mix was for mum not the puppy, puppy is only 8 days old. I have only posted what i know to work, all have been recommended by my vet. Puppy may be constipated due to bitch's diet, they're not all great eaters after a litter as we all know!

Thank you both for your advise. I have fed mum weetabix and milk as an addition to the Eukanabu puppy food that she is eating now and has been doing since the beginning of her pregnancy (mum now eating 3 times her normal amount, so her appetite is fine). All the other pups in the litter are doing very well with no constipation and putting on weight in abundance, only this one appears to be constipated and now not putting on weight as not feeding. Saying that, I have managed to get her to go just a little and to take some of mothers milk but just a little. I haven't tried brown sugar in the mums water but have put glucose in. I will see how this progresses. Thanks again

When hand rearing a singleton pup which became very constipated , I added a few drops of Lactulose to each feed.It worked a treat and she had no other problems after this.

I had a litter of 8 that all had this problem. Mine were passing small very hard stools, all the pups seemed to grumble a lot, as though they had tummy pains. My vet gave me some very tiny ememas to give them, they worked at the time, but they got bunged up again after. I started to give the bitch a couple of scrambled eggs every day and this seemed to work on the pups digestion, in fact they went the other way, and I then had to stop giving the eggs to the bitch. But this did seem to sort things out. You could also try some liquid paraffin on the end of your finger and let puppy suck it off.
Had the pup been going o.k up know ??