The first week the puppies are born you are going to find out just how the mother is doing.

It may seem like she can handle it all by herself but when she’s just had nine puppies, she hasn’t been fed very well and is malnourished, you should step in and help take the strain off her and give her a chance to rest and at least feed some of the puppies.

By the second week you should have a pretty good idea what is happening to the puppies.  If some are smaller and get pushed away from the mom then these puppies are likely to die if you do not help them feed. 

Gather up your tools and find someone to help because it took me 2 hours a day, three times a day to feed 9 puppies.

My brother couldn’t believe it when he had to do it alone.  I spent my entire vacation with the puppies, feeding, bathing, cleaning up after them and giving the mother dog a lot of loving because she knew she was doing something wrong.  She just didn’t know that her body was not producing enough milk to feed her entire brood.  She worried and paced around but mostly was exhausted from the puppies trying to suckle when all the milk was gone.

Finally her nipples and breasts became hardened and we had to apply treatment to her so that they would soften up again and not become infected.