PenDOG

If there is a small fluffy ball of happiness in the house, then you have bought a dog. The mischievous ball will certainly become the best friend for the owner and protector, but for now it is a defenseless animal that requires proper care and upbringing. You must teach him the rules and norms of behavior, give a balanced diet, bathe on time, cut his claws, and so on. In this article, we will talk about how best to train a dog at home, what should be the care of a pet from the first days of its appearance in the house.

Care for puppies after birth or how to care for very small puppies?
First of all, you need to allocate a special place where the mother and her babies will be located. You have to equip it with everything you need to make a soft warm blanket, prepare electrical heater, it may need to warm puppies, electric scales for weighing puppies and dogs substitute milk, if milk is not enough, or the puppies will be so weak that it is not able to suck milk and have to feed them from a syringe milk replacer.

Be prepared that in the first days of life of newborn puppies, You will need to constantly be near the dog and its puppies, this is especially true for a young dog that brings litter for the first time. To do this, take a vacation and ask for help and share the schedule of care and monitoring of puppies and their mother with someone from the household.

If the dog is experienced, then caring for newborn puppies will not require much effort and attention from You. Dogs that are not the first time becoming mothers are very attentive and caring attitude to puppies, they are especially careful and regularly lick them, which is very important for the life of newborn puppies. The fact is that licking stimulates blood circulation, digestion and defecation, as well as the breathing of a newborn puppy. Newborn puppies can not defecate themselves, it is the licking of the mother dog that stimulates this process. In the first days of the puppies ‘ life, they are clean and dry thanks to such careful care on the part of their mother. If the dog is inexperienced or is in a weakened state after a caesarean section and can not often lick the puppies, then you will have to periodically wipe the puppies ‘ tummies with a damp cloth and thus stimulate their vital processes.

How to properly care for a puppy?

From the first days of life, blind and deaf puppies are able to suck milk, making pushing movements with their front and hind legs, these actions create a nipple massage and stimulate milk production. It is very important that the first feeding of puppies is colostrum. This is the first portion of milk that is produced in a dog for the first 3-5 days, the composition of colostrum has unique qualities, this milk contains nutrients and immunoglobulins that protect the weak organisms of puppies from various infections.

The sucking reflex is fixed from birth, this is not necessary to teach puppies. However, there are situations when puppies are so weak that I can’t suck on my own or hold on to the nipple. Then you need to help, hold the puppy, open his mouth and put the nipple in his mouth, first you need to massage the dog’s mammary glands so that colostrum is released from the nipple. The smell of colostrum will trigger a sucking reflex in the puppy. If the puppies are very weak and are not able to suck on their own, then they will have to be fed from a syringe every 2 hours with a dog’s milk substitute. The first volume of feeding from the syringe is 0.5 – 1 ml of milk, after reaching the two-week period, the puppy can consume 5-10 ml of milk or milk substitute.

It is very important to monitor the weight of babies. Starting from the second day of life, puppies need to be weighed daily, they must necessarily add weight daily. If this does not happen, it means that the puppies are not getting enough nutrition, the mother does not have enough milk, and You need to feed them additionally from a syringe with milk or its substitute.

Keep an eye on the dog’s mammary glands, if there is an excessive amount of milk, it can develop mastitis, which can be determined by swollen, hard and painful glands, they are hot and have a bumpy surface. At the first signs of mastitis, it is necessary to lubricate these affected glands with camphor oil and conduct a gentle massage to get rid of stagnant phenomena in the mammary gland. If this does not help, be sure to contact your veterinarian!

Separately, you should take care of maintaining heat in the location of the puppies. Newborn puppies can’t control their body temperature and are prone to hypothermia. Puppies are warmed by their mother’s body, and the puppies also warm each other while in close contact. During the period when the mother is absent from the place, she is on a walk or went for feeding, you need to provide additional heating for the puppies, for this you need to use an electric heating pad.

Caring for newborn puppies requires constant inspection. On day 7-10, you need to start cutting the claws of the puppies, just a little, just sharp hooks. You need to trim your nails once a week. This must be done so that the puppies do not injure the delicate skin of the mammary glands of the mother dog with their claws.

You also need to be especially careful to ensure that there is no inflammation of the navel stump in puppies. To do this, you need to lubricate the navel with green paint twice a day in the morning and in the evening.

As the puppies grow, they become more active, if at first they only sleep and eat, then from the third week of life the puppies begin to walk actively, defecate independently, play and fight with their brothers and sisters.

At the fourth week, the puppies have their first teeth, which means it’s time to feed them. Gradually, the proportion of mother’s milk in the diet of puppies will decrease, and milk will be replaced by other food.

The transition from milk to other products should be done gradually, it is necessary to monitor the condition of the puppies. If the puppies are still weak, do not rush to transfer them to another food. The gradual change of diet should take place in stages, first add one lure a day to get the puppy used to it, look at its reaction, then twice a day, then three, four, five, six until the complete replacement of mother’s milk.

Basic rules for proper feeding of newborns

The position of babies during feeding is lying on their tummy with their head slightly raised. It is convenient to cover your knees with a soft cloth or towel and put the kitten / puppy on your feet.
Feed only freshly prepared artificial mixtures or homemade, stored no more than a day in the refrigerator.
Be sure to wash your hands with soap before feeding – this will help avoid bacterial stomach upset.

Any containers used for feeding newborn animals should be boiled for at least 5 minutes. Most often, pipettes, syringes, or special bottles and nipples sold in pet stores, vetapteks, or bundled with breast milk substitutes are used. Pipettes and syringes should be used with great care dogs, because too fast flow of milk / mixture can provoke inhalation of food drops and the development of pneumonia.
You can heat the mixture in a water bath,or in a microwave. Food temperature should be in the range of 37-38°C in the first 1.5-2 weeks, and then it is brought to 26°C by the end of the first month of life.
If the puppy/kitten take a pacifier and spit, open mouth, pressing lightly on the edge of the jaw, and sprinkle a few drops on the tongue, so the kids got a taste of the food and realized that I suck.
Bottles/syringes/pipettes should be held at approximately a 45°angle.
Do not put pressure on the container, speeding up the feeding process!
During the feeding process, stroke the baby’s forehead and back – this will stimulate sucking.
The fed-up baby lets go of the pacifier and calmly falls asleep, the hungry one will continue to squeak and look for food.
After feeding, kittens/puppies should be emptied – it is important to monitor this.
Feeding should be carried out strictly on time. If the babies are sleeping, you should gently Wake them up and start feeding them a little.
Any deviations in the feeding process: refusal of the nipple, milk goes through the nostrils, restless behavior, unreasonable meowing/whining-this is always an excuse to show the babies to the veterinarian and find out what the reason for this behavior is!
What to feed the puppy?
Growing puppies, feeding, care — this is a very important issue, there are two possible options. Either you prepare your own food for your Pets, or you buy ready-made dry or wet food.

You can not combine these types of food, as this will cause digestive disorders. In addition, it is likely that feeding both ready-made food and additional food will cause an excess of vitamins and minerals in the diet of puppies, and this in turn will negatively affect the development of growing organisms.

The advantage of ready-made food is that it is developed by specialists taking into account all the needs of the puppy in the diet. The ready-made food contains an optimal combination of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, as well as omega-3 fatty acids, which ensure the normal development of vision and the nervous system.

But the food you need to choose is not economy class, but super premium class. Only superpremium class feeds contain natural products, they are free of chemicals, dyes and GMOs. Moreover, in a wide range of feeds, you can find a variety of dog food for different ages, the degree of activity of the pet’s lifestyle, and they also take into account the needs for diet, if the pet has certain diseases.