Rearing Puppies

Hello all,
When Florrie, my westie cross dandie dinmont terrier is older, we are going to let her whelp a litter or two, with one of my aunite in-law's working westie.
I know there are plenty of cross breeds, or as these pups will be more westie blood dominated, but good homes have already been found, and florrie is only 4 months old.
I am planning on breeding her o breed pups, of a good working ability, as Florrie is improving now.
So i wanted to know facts about rearing puppies!
any advice or information welcome,
best wishes

only being four months old you have a couple of years yet to read up .....the book of the bitch is the first book to get ......

1 question, Florries mum, Poppy was a pedigree dandie dinmont terrier, and she was 19 months when she had her first litter, and se=he is now 3 yrs, was that a good age to breed?
best wishes

If you decide that breeding from her is what you really want to do, you have loads of time to learn everything you need to know about mating, care of the bitch during gestation,whelping and care of bitch and pups post partum.
Your girl wiil need to be around 2 years old before you mate her.
And remember that a lot of the people who say they will have a pup will back out at the last minute so you need to be very sure that you can house and feed the pups for as long as it takes to find GOOD homes for possibly up to 7 or 8 pups.

Hi Luke, I find that terriers are quite slow maturing, mentally, and are not really ready for the rigours and demands of motherhood til they are approaching the 2 year mark at the earliest. I have mated a bitch at 18 months and she was NOT as good a Mother as the bitches who have been that shade older.

Luke, I've no wish to be the bad guy here, BUT, I do not believe that the deliberate breeding of cross breed puppies is a responsible thing to do. As you yourself have said, there are many unwanted cross breeds in rescue centres around the world, let alone the country. Deliberately adding to the numbers is a bad idea.

If you have a genuine interest in breeding dogs, there is a right way to go about it.

That is, save up alot of money.
Buy the very best bitch puppy that you can lay your hands on.
Rear and train her well, for whatever dicipline you choose to get interested in.
Hope she wins, really well.
Have her tested for all the health problems known in the breed, and hope that she passes. If she does not, start all over again.
If she does.... Learn as much as you possibly can about pregnant bitches, and rearing a litter. The Book of the Bitch is an absolute bible.
Mate her to a top winning successful male.
Rear the litter well, assuming the whelping goes without incident.
Then hope for the best.

You would want to breed the BEST puppies you can, wouldn't you?

Dawn R.

Hello Lu-1 I hope you don't mind if I say when you have done all the things the others have suggested in the posts above and before you go ahead and breed from Florrie, be aware that there is a chance you could have to pay huge vets fees costing hundreds of pounds for a caesarean, be left with no puppies at all or lose Florrie and have to hand rear puppies. Breeding dogs is expensive and at times both difficult and heartbreaking and it is best to know these things before you begin.

The whelping and rearing of a litter is no easy task, are you prepared for the costs of possible c-section, problems during whelping? Possibility of losing mum during whelping and ending up with a litter to hand rear? Which means bottle feeding a pain staking 2ml every 2 hours both day and night, then winding the pup, plus making them do their toilet business??

IF mum delivers fine and everything goes to plan, it's still a 24/7 job, mums are fed up to 4x their normal amount, then pups are fed 5 times a day and this is right up to the time they leave you at 8 weeks old. Toilet training, socialisation etc.

If you want to breed a litter why not get yourself a KC registered girl, with a good pedigree, get all health tests done, show her, then see if she is up to scratch.

We're not trying to put you off, but you have to remember, if any of your pups have any problems at all, due to no health checks, you could risk having them all back!

Thank you all for the information,
a few things though, we know the basics as my parents bred staffies, Dobermans and i believe we had a Lab who had a litter once, i know the risks, we lost a staffie bitch to an infection, but that was due to the vet, not checking her thouroghly (sp?)
One more thing on the genetics front, Florrie is a westie cross dandie dinmont and the planned sire of the pups is a KC registered Westie, we are breeding for a purpose, to breed a terrier with various traits, that unless you work terriers you would not understand, no offence!
Potential homes are in the pipeline, although they will be 'vetted' first, the dogs will be both health checked, and tested. The puppies that we are planning to breed, will be brought into this world, with a purpose that isnt to make a ridiculas amount of money. Allso we may keep one, if there is a real, REAL keen worker, that shows interest.
And afterall, many terriers are not KC registered, therefore classed as a cross often, some that are not KC registered are JRTs, Patterdale terriers, Lucas Terriers, Plummer terriers there are many more. But these dogs are bred purposeley, and with possibly more thought than KC registered breeders put into their bitches.
And why dont i get a KC registered bitch. We have bred KC registtered dogs, well my mother did when i was a little younger, and personally i do not like the way that the whole KC registered breeding is done. I dont like how it is treated like a buisness, instead of a labour of love, that is why a choose a tru terrier of good working backgrounds. And before you asked , yes Florries litter was planned, as the breeder is aiming at breeding various terriers togetherto create, an ULTIMATE worker!
hope this helps, as much as your information has helped me.
best wishes

Hi LU-1, can i just ask out of interest as i feel that everyone has provided you with some good information.
Do you have health records going about 3-5 generations back? the issue isnt necessarily about kc registration, but wether or not you can get the results from grandparents hip and eye scores for example?
do u plan on running these health tests on your bitch? and if they dont come up to scratch will u breed anyway?