Can anyone help me as to how long I should keep my other bitch away. I have two golden retrievers,one who I will be breeding on her next season. The other is 7 months old at the moment. I have a separate whelping room that is away from my younger bitch at the moment they are together all the time. when should I allow the younger bitch to see mum and pups together.

Thanks Lynn.

Be guided by the mum when she's had her pups. Mine generally won't allow the other dogs anywhere near the door to the whelping room for the first week, but by 4 weeks are quite happy to let them all mix.

Many thanks Jeangenie, I was thinking about letting mum and babies stay in the whelping room for 2-3 weeks, we have given up our kitchen/diner to the dogs and I have a large 5ftx10ft puppy pen cage in there, so I was going to put them in there at about 3 weeks. The whelping room is separate from this.

I keep my Mum and Pups upstairs until they are aproximately two weeks old, until their eyes are open.  by then the bitch is starting to miss being in the heart of the family and I bring her and pups down to the kitchen.  the bitch will then guard her pups from the others for some time longer, and they know not to interfere buyt she will gradually allow them first to look then to approach and finally to interact with ehr new family as they become more mobile.

Mine is not a guarding breed and the bitches all get on easily and well with each other and other dogs.

Just a word of warning someone i know has just lost a litter of Pups when another bitch got in and Killed them all, and this was not a guarding breed either.And they were i  think around 4 weeks old .

I had heard of this happening with two sisters one who had a litter in a primitive Spitz breed but this was in  pups before they were mobile.

I can't imagine a bitch simply killing such a mature litter out of the blue if she hadn't shown any signs of antagonism, though have heard of Terriers killing theier own pups when they got to the running about stage mistaking their movements and noise of prey, and was quite shocked.