Newborn Puppy Care: 5 Things You Need to Know
Caring for a newborn puppy isn’t easy, especially if this is your first time working with them. Caring for a puppy is much more complicated than caring for an adult dog, in which case it is highly recommended that you dedicate more time to caring for him as you should exercise as much patience as you would when you were grooming your own pup.
For some reason, some people may choose to spay a female dog to avoid trouble. However, if you are one of those who let her get pregnant, and since then, your activity has increased
In the previous article I wrote, although it was not specific about How to Raise a Young Dog. However, this article is general in nature and also applies to adult dogs.
How to take care of newborn puppies will be explained in more detail in this article. Read it with great patience and thoroughness, for this is very important as a good start as your preparation.
How to Take Care of a Newborn Puppy
Puppies are cute and playful and everyone wants to have them, but there is a lot of intense grooming into their development in the first few weeks. These are some of the important things to know if you have to care for a newborn puppy.
What to do on the first day of birth?
The mother and puppy should have a special nest during the grooming period specially designed to keep them warm and comfortable. So, prepare a dog house complete with pillows, small heaters and blankets.
Because in the first few weeks there will usually be drainage and dirt, make sure every day you replace everything in the dog house, everything in the bed must be made sure to be clean because cleanliness is the main key in maintaining a healthy environment. child The puppy and the mother.
Avoid cutting the puppy’s placenta to avoid bleeding, leave the placenta intact and dry out. After giving birth, you are required to immediately change the doormat, towels or newspapers to maintain cleanliness, but still be careful not to disturb the mother and puppy.
During the first 4-5 days, let the mother and puppy develop a bond, leaving them alone as much as possible in the first few days, your job is simply to make sure their place is clean, apart from continuing to make sure the puppies are warm.
A newborn puppy’s body temperature should be between 94-99 degrees Fahrenheit and will increase to 100 degrees by 2 weeks of age.
It will also be your routine to weigh puppies for at least the first 3 weeks, recording their weight to ensure they are well fed. Disinfect the pan on the scale before you weigh each dog.
Use a home disinfectant to clean the pot and then dry it. In this case, you should contact your vet for information if a problem occurs. If you have other pets, keep them for several weeks, because their presence is also very susceptible to transmission of bacteria which is very risky to the pups.
Beware of Newborn Puppy Health warnings
The most important thing to pay attention to is food, newborn puppies only need to eat, at least you feed them every three to four hours and feed them all night.
When you are most needed, a lot of work you have to do to care for the puppy in terms of feeding, within about a week the puppy starts to recognize the food at which point you can start introducing several types of dogs. food plus milk in it.
There are several things that are important to note when you find a newborn dog acting unusual, if you find signs that the puppy is getting tired, lethargic and reluctant to move it could be a sign that he is starting to get sick.
Diarrhea is very prone to occur, the signs can be seen through feces that are more dominated by water than forming feces, if that happens the puppy may need to be treated. Or, they may have internal parasites or some other form of infection that needs to be treated. Or maybe you see discharge from your dog’s nose that makes it difficult for you to breathe?
if so, your dog may have pneumonia or breathing problems and need immediate treatment. Some things to watch out for are vomiting, excessive crying, rejection by the mother, or if the puppy is breastfeeding with another.
After 2 weeks, give your puppy a deworming product, as the dog can get worms and other parasites that can cause health problems. The recommended deworming medicine is fenbendazole or panacur at a dose of 2 ml every day for 3 days for consumption of 1 kg body weight.
If you reach 6 weeks of age, you can give nail care and apply selamectin. Meanwhile, fipronil (front line) application can only be done on puppies with a minimum age of 8 weeks and a body weight of more than 2 kilograms.
For immunization, it can be applied to start at 6 weeks of age, previously the puppies have received certain immunity from the parent, but still need additional immunization to maintain their health. Check with your puppy at the vet for a proper immunization schedule.
Make sure the puppy is always close to the mother
Like human puppies, when they are just born, puppies must be close to their mother. Under any circumstances, especially in such critical times, they cannot be separated from their mother.
Give the mother and newborn puppy enough time to rest, making sure it doesn’t bother them too much. It is at times like these that mothers provide nourishment from milk for boosting the immune system and healthy development.
Feeding is usually done every two to three hours for puppies and they cannot eat solid food until they are at least four weeks old. Puppies between four and eight weeks of age can eat a mixture of dry food and milk, then they can switch to whole solid foods after that period.
If the mother is not present, it is recommended that you contact your vet for recommendations for milk substitutes.
How to feed a newborn puppy?
For about 10 days after birth, please note that puppies can not see and cannot hear, here you have to help them get to their mother’s nipples. By doing this, you keep your hands clean, wash and dry them, and gently guide the puppy to stick its lips against its mother’s nipple.
You may need to make a mental note, if one puppy does not gain weight with the other, move him to get the back nipple, please note that the back nipple produces more milk than the front.
Always pay attention to the activities of puppies with their mother. The mother dog does produce milk, but this production can be reduced and there is a risk that the milk will no longer be sufficient to provide the nutrition the puppies need, usually milk production usually lasts 3-4 weeks.
Here you also have to prepare everything needed, including the maintenance tool package. Use a bottle that you can buy from a pet food store, the bottle in question has been specifically designed for puppies according to the size of the mouth, usually the available bottles come with nipples of various shapes, you can choose the size of the nipples according to the condition of your dog’s mouth. make a hole in the nipple forming an “X” but try not to be too big.
Place warm milk in a bottle and make sure the puppy is really ready to eat. Hold/place the puppy’s lap gently, you can support the mouth to make it easier to eat. Also, try not to make them eat too fast so there is air in his mouth, he does not need aspiration which means going straight into the lungs or nose.
After you finish feeding them, try stimulating them to urinate to help them digest the food. Rub the stomach with a soft cloth until they really want to remove water, do this after every meal to make sure they digest the food properly. If you think they still seem hungry, go back and feed them a little more. Of course, when you find your dog eating, that’s fun.
Training a newborn dog to relieve himself
Taking care of a newborn puppy makes you truly like a mother to that dog. When training a newborn dog to the bathroom, you need to make sure that the puppy will go to the bathroom, but that the puppy will not go to the bathroom unless with the mother.
So, all you have to do is take a wet cloth, a nice clean wet cloth and use some nice warm water, it has to be some nice warm water here and like a mother licking a puppy’s belly to take her to the restroom, you will.
which is the same as gently stroking a dog’s stomach and trying to stimulate a puppy to urinate, at first it will be very uncomfortable, but you have to do it well because they don’t want to eat, they don’t want to do anything until they go to the bathroom.
Make sure your vet is always ready to supervise
The early stages of a puppy birth will be marked by many dangers that you are sometimes not aware of, so veterinary supervision is highly recommended to give a healthy start.
It should be noted that when the first pups are born they cannot hear, see and often defecate in their own place, so there is a high chance that they may fall ill due to health problems.
Ask your doctor for the best advice on how to care for newborn puppies. This is serious, young chicks are susceptible to a number of diseases and if not given proper care they can potentially die.
For twelve weeks young puppies must stay with their mother to help them grow and develop before they are kept outside. Puppies are gentle animals and require a lot of attention, please contact the nearest vet immediately to ensure good health for your puppy.
Newborn Puppy Milk
Newborn puppies will only drink mother’s milk. At this stage, the puppy does not need any extra food, either soft or solid. Breast milk provides everything a puppy needs to be healthy and strong.
Exceptions are made if the mother dog is absent or unable to breastfeed for some reason. If so, contact your vet immediately. You can help feed your puppy with a bottle that has been filled with a special formula for puppies.
That’s how to care for a newborn puppy. From the review above, it is certain that how to keep them is different from cats, not as easy as we imagine.