In the ednd for the first time I did not keep anything from the litter as I felt the single girl was not up to my 2 year old at same age. The people who have her have had a litter before and with my help may breed from her later so perfect. Apart from one they went yesterday and all reported settling in well.
Problem is that I have one now on holiday until next Saturday. I am unable to let him run around unsupervised because of the other dogs and so all my pens are still set up but when I leave him he just sits and squeaks!. I know it is early days and actually we had a good night with him. given him his own little bed and a hide chew and he has his toys. Now there is one Mum goes into the pen but I'm not sure if it is a good idea because when he approaches her as he has done underneath she is growling at him and he is just rolls over submissive. Normally if I hold one back I have the one I am keeping but ????
I don't want anything to happen which is going to affect him in the future.

What would you be doing if he was 'your' puppy that you were keeping? Surely it should be just the same, he should be treated the same as you would do if he was staying for good?
If the puppy/whelping pen was in a room away from the others I would think he would be happier if you used a crate (for safety when you can't have him free) placed somewhere busier (kitchen?) where he will have the comfort of the other dogs around and be able to see what is going on.

I had one puppy in the same situation as yours. What I did was just do exactly the same as if she was being kept. So the puppy pen went down, a crate next to the other dogs went up for bedtime (she was used to spending short periods of time in a crate as part of their upbringing) and she just joined in with all the others, for meals, playtime the lot. I took her out with me in my arms to help socialise her and we went and sat on a town bench and watched people and pigeons etc. We even made a good start on housetraining, although at that age they dont generalise very well and the new owners needed to associate where they wanted her to go in their garden, but she caught on really quickly.

It was actually quite nice to have one left for a bit, she was my utter favourite and one that I debated keeping for a very long time (including on here lol) however I now have a really good friendship with her new owners as I do with the rest of the owners and my gut feeling was right in that she was too similar to her Mum with not enough of the points I wanted to develop from Dad to continue my line.

I rarely have all pups go at once and quite often have one for longer due to holiday or being exported etc.

My pups though have been mixing outdoors with the other dogs from around 6 weeks anyway and only separated from them indoors by a puppy pen.

Once we are down to one or two pups then they can be loose with the other dogs full time except at night and the pups mealtimes.

As for Mum growling if he tries to suckle, how else is she to signal the milk bar is closed?  I would consider that perfectly normal.

By the time the pups are 10 weeks old any of the dogs who may have largely ignored them, have assumed they are staying, and start to play etc with them more.

I've got 2 older dogs that I could not take a chance on not being my own puppy. I feed all my dogs together but if the puppy came near them they would get snapped at so not a good idea. His Mum and her first daughter are OK but the others give any puppies bit of a hard time. I know that is how they learn of course.
He is coming out for periods at a time to run around the garden under supervision. If I was keeping him I know they have to get used to being chastised and so on and that is my job to sort out discipline but this will be someone else's puppy. I have 3 separate pens. One in the living room, one larger one in the kitchen and a very large pen out into the garden. You are right in that if he was mine the pen would be taken down and a substituted for a cage.
I've given him a hide cigar and a sterilised filled bone

Surely though the adults are only fed once or twice a day, so easy enough tom supervise him or put him in a crate with his own meal.

You'll be doing the new owners a big favour if his canine social skills are up to par, as you have more opportunity to introduce him to various adults than the new owners will at first.

But he is running around with the adults when I am there with him but I can not leave him unsupervised. Of course naturally the more freedom he gets the more he does not like being penned. It is important I do that as well because the new owners have a cage and the more he is used to being restricted at times, the more comfortable he will be when they leave him for a while.
I have given him a cows ear to chew on and he seems quite content with that for a while.

> But he is running around with the adults when I am there with him but I can not leave him unsupervised.

Ah that makes sense and I do the same if we go out and at night, they just have to like ti or lump it.

Just taken him down to the garage to put fuel in. ( in a small cage ). He screamed all the way there - a little on the way back and then he stopped. He wasn't sick - I gather none of them have been sick despite some with a long journey.
Tomorrow I'm off to the vets with him so he can have his first jab on time so another car journey.
I've now got him in the kitechen with me and all the other dogs while I make some cakes so hopefully I will  not have a problem. Washing machine on and he is being really funny because as he walks by it he is jumping away.

Mine loved the washing machine and wouls sit watching with heads tilted.

Here are the last three of my last litter, (8- 9 weeks I think) helping with the dishwashing http://barbelka.awardspace.co.uk/_wp_generated/wp8c13ba94.jpg

Like others have said you need to treat him as if he was yours. How do you cope with your big dogs when you keep one yourself ? treat him the same. We all have to cage/pen pups when we cannot supervise as they will rag older dogs and in turn be put in thier place, if we are able to supervise thats fine and pups soon learn who they can and cannot annoy. Mum is just reinforcing the milk bar issue and is very very unlikly to hurt her baby at this age. The pup I have kept has learnt that Granny Merlot is not so tollerant to Rioja's antics as her Mother is and so she treats her with a little more respect ! Unless you are worried one of your older dogs would cause real harm then I would suggest you let them all run about together as much as possible and have a nice play pen pup can go into when you are out/unable to watch and leave him in a room with the other dogs around.
Aileen