One of the four day old mini F1B Goldendoodlepuppies died today, a big healthy boy. They have all been doing really well, active and gaining weight. I checked them at about 6 AM, and let Rouge out and fed her. I went back a couple hours later and one of the pups was dead, just laying on his side with his mouth open. I think Rouge must have rolled over on him. She is a big girl at about 57 lbs with her ‘nursing weight’, and she would not have to lay on a pup for long for it to suffocate. The whelping pen has ‘pig rails’ installed…..foam noodles attached to the walls about 5 inches up from the bottom….that help keep this from happening more often. The rails mean mom can’t lean all the way up against the wall of the whelping pen, there is always a gap between her and the wall so a pup has a chance to wriggle back there and get out of the way. I can’t tell you how many times I have fished a pup out from behind a mom. But today it did not make a difference.
The saddest thing is that Rouge knows he is gone. I put him up on some towels on a shelf in the other room, intending to bury him later. I went back in to the whelping area an hour later, and all the towels were off the shelf and the puppy was gone. He was back with the other puppies in the whelping pen. Poor Rouge. I let her see him one more time and took him away.
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