Hi & welcome to the forum.

I hate to be the one to say it and amazed nobody else has!

It really is not senisble to even consider leaving your girl & the pups alone from 7 - 4 and outside on a patio.

When my girl had her pups; she was never left from 2 weeks prior to whelping and the whole time the pups where here (8 weeks). I only let the pups out in the garden when they were 4 weeks old and this was in July when it was warm; then it was always supervised.

I strongly recommend you maybe rethink a little.

Good luck & I'm sure there will be others around to offer some advice.

MM

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Sammy Gone But Not Forgotten x x

Hi Chocosmum

If I were you I wouldn't send Choco away completely. However, it might be better just to keep him in a different room when Kit first goes into labour, so that she feels safe and secure - for her first pup Evie decided she couldn't possibly give birth in the whelping box we so carefully prepared, and went upstairs, pulled all the clothes out of the washing basket, and insisted that if we didn't let her have her puppies there then she wasn't going to have the puppies at all! She was quite happy to come back downstairs after the first pup, and after we had moved the other three dogs out of the living room where the whelping box was.

As I said in my earlier post, once mum and pups are settled, that is the time to let Choco in to have a look. From what you say about his character you should be ok, but keep an eye on Kit and watch that she doesn't get stressed about him being there. As he's only five months old it will be a learning curve for him too, so he might need a bit of training. I suggest that if he doesn't already know the "leave" command then teach it to him now before the pups are born. I would hazard a guess that he will want to play with them as soon as they start moving about, which is fine, but make sure that he only plays with them under supervision so that you can control him. In fact, I would only let him into the room where the pups are under supervision, as he'll be big enough to jump over the puppy pen to get to them to play!

Re returning to work - like you, I wish we could have maternity leave for pups! When we planned Evie's litter, we arranged that between myself, my OH and my eldest niece , we would take enough annual leave to make sure the pups were never left on their own. From seven until four seems a long time for puppies to be left, with just one visit during that time. Have you got any family members and friends that could help out while you are at work? There's a lot of work to be done with a litter of pups.

In the beginning you will need to supervise them when mum feeds them to make sure that all pups are suckling equally (with Evie's litter the first born would have had all the milk if we had let him!) and once they are on solid food they will need at least one, of not two, meals during that time. (If you can't get anyone to help, the first one of you to come home is going to have to deal with a lovely mess of poo and poo covered pups!) As they grow older, and you begin to wean them, you also need someone there to supervise and control Kit's access to them so that she doesn't suckle them as much. In addition to all that, part of rearing the pups is socialising them, even from that early age, so their being alone for such large amounts of time is not ideal. Once we knew mum and pups were healthy we encouraged friends to visit - we made them take off their shoes and wash their hands and then let them handle the pups so that the pups quickly became used to people.

Re taking the pups outside - it all depends on what the weather is like! I certainly would not advise that their permanent pen be outisde on a patio. Their permanent pen needs to be somewhere warm and free from draughts. Evie had her pups at the end of January, and it was b----y cold, so we only started taking them outside from being about 4 weeks old. After we fed them we would take them onto the patio, wait until they had wee'd an poo'd, then we praised them and took them back in. On the odd days when the weather was warmer, we let them have a supervised play on the patio for about 15 mins at a time.

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From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:
The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ,
Moves on, nor all thy Piety nor Wit
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(But you can always edit your post, of course )

Didnt even see that bit I bought a large metal playpen. called discovery panels from Croft, I was able to put this up in our conservatory(it is pretty large room admittingly) but I found this wonderful, for containing mum and pups safely if I had to pop out to the shops etc, and the other dogs could not get over it to interfer(this was when the pups were a few weeks old and mum was happy to have other dogs around) I got a 4ft one for safetly measures, I certainly wouldnt have my pups outside thats for sure, and my breed is an arctic breed, even with heat source, ther are drafts, and always the possibility of theft.

mo

Hi and thank you all for your advice - its very very welcome!

Our cousin (whose dog is the daddy) & his wife a very willing to help so we should be able to make sure someone is there all the time, at least for a few weeks. We have a huge family and having puppies around will draw them in like flies so we're going to sit down tonight and arrange a roster :-)

I like the idea of having a separate room for mum and pups (laundry will be nice and easy to clean too)

Moboyd, I'll have to have a look for something after work today that will be suitable. It would be great to have a nice clean, warm covered area for Kit and the pups so that we can easily separate them if Choco becomes too rambunctious!

I'm actually in Australia (I'm an imposter! ) but really like the advice on this site. We're coming into our summer here now so it's very warm out - but I definately won't take the pups outside until 4-5 weeks old.

Thanks again for all your great feedback!
Cheers!