Once the dog's given birth, again, stay out of the way and let Mama do her thing as much as you can. But what does that look like? All I want you to do is be a conscientious observer at first. So I want you to ensure that those pups, shortly after birth, are nursing. If they're not, encourage them to nurse. If you have to, that's one way you might want to get involved. You can squeeze a little bit of milk out and try to put some on the puppies’ lips or tongue and encourage them to latch. You shouldn't have to, as most puppies figured out with the help of mom, but you should observe that they are nursing properly. You should observe that each placenta passes. If there's one puppy, that equals one placenta, so you should see that. You might have to look closely because momma might take care of that real quick. But you want to make sure that that passes.

You also want to make sure that she's cleaning them adequately. Again, I'm not implying that you jump in there in the first five seconds. Oh no, she didn't do anything. I'm going to dry it. But you know, after the first 10, 15 minutes or so, if she's not cleaning or drying that puppy, then maybe you can stimulate them a little bit with a warm towel and dry them a little bit, so they don't start getting cold. I would do that, but immediately try to put them right back with mom and let her take over that role, if possible.

I'm going to be honest with you; just from personal experience, I can tell you that this is a highly variable answer. I have seen some dogs where they are over and done in a matter of 30 minutes to an hour—even with a Labrador-sized litter where they might pass 10 or 12 puppies. I also owned a dog that came from a litter that was born over three days. This female would have three or four, and then she'd stop and think she was done. And the next day, the owner would come home from work, and there were four or five more. And then it happened for three days.

Is that normal? No. Would I be nervous? Yeah. Had that dog been brought to me as a veterinarian, I probably would've done x-rays and said, "Oh God, there's still three more. Let's go get them." But there's a lot of variability. I would tell you, on average, a couple of hours is about right. But there's so much variability depending on the size of the puppies, the size of the female, the size of the litter, and the breed of dog. There are certain breeds like English bulldogs that are sort of the poster child for dystocia. Those guys have a hard time passing through the birth canal naturally so that it can take a little bit longer, and sometimes people don't even want to take that chance, and they'll do a scheduled C-section. For certain breeds, that's not a bad idea too.

You’ll know the number of pups due to the x-rays. Ultrasound is another test that you can do leading up to it that might tell you about the viability of the puppies and how vigorous they were. It'll check their heart rate, and that's kind of neat to see, but it's very, very difficult. I would argue almost impossible to give an accurate puppy count on ultrasound. X-rays anytime after day 50 will be when the skeletons are visible on an x-ray, so that will be the best information you can have to know the number.

Only if there's a problem. She knows what she’s doing. Even if the dog has never given birth before, it's called genetics; they're going to figure it out. So I try not to intervene unless I have to. And again, I kind of briefly touched upon it earlier, pushing for 30 minutes with no puppy, and those kinds of things might require intervention. If things like that are happening, then absolutely get on the phone, call me and let me know, or, better yet, bring the dog in, and we'll do what we have to do. But other than that, stay out of the way and let her do her thing. She's going to eat the placenta. She's going to lick the puppy clean.

She's going to lick the puppies to make them go to the bathroom for the first time. They need to nurse on her immediately to cause not only for milk letdown but it also causes a release of oxytocin. This release helps the uterine to involute and start to either contract more, or when pregnancy is done, it makes the uterus collapse and empty blood clots and extra placental tissue. And just the simple act of a puppy nursing does that. So again, stay out of the way as much as possible. Call me if you need to, but otherwise, let the pups do their thing.

In a whelping box. So what does that look like? What's a whelping box? It's a quiet, dark, and comfortable spot—preferably one that the dog is comfortable with because they don't want to have puppies in the middle of your living room floor. You might want them to because, "Oh, look how neat. There's one, there's two." She doesn't want to be around all that. She wants to be in the dark where it's quiet, and you have no idea what's happening. So prepare that spot for her. And if you have that spot prepared, show it to her before, let her sleep in it before, and get her comfortable with it. That should be her safe haven. That should be where she knows she can go, and she's going to be left alone, quiet, and nobody's in her way. Show it to her for a couple of weeks leading up to birthing, if possible.