Whelping puppies is a stressful time for both the mother and her owner. Delivery often begins in the middle of the night or early in the morning, when everyone involved already feels exhausted from a night on puppy watch. Throughout the whelping process, mothers normally have pauses in the delivery of puppies, but when do pauses become time for concern?
Many tips for whelping puppies advocate rushing to the vet after a 2 hour pause. However, the C-section is not without its risks. Nor is a veterinary practice risk-free, with potential communicable diseases. With twenty years experience in whelping litters, here are my thoughts based on my experience, as well as the experiences of fellow breeders, on what to do when a dog stops giving birth, and when to do it.
In this article we will discuss:
- Normal puppy delivery
- When to use or not use Oxytocin
- The “Whelping Pause”
- Factors that stimulate contractions
- How to help your girl with a stuck puppy
- Uterine Inertia
- When to seek veterinary attention
- How to know when whelping is over
What To Expect in a Normal Dog Whelping Process
Breeding dogs is not for the faint of heart. Normally, it is one of your life companions, perhaps one who shares your bed with you, who will be giving birth not just to one puppy but typically 4-8 of them. The risks for complications seem myriad.
The first phase of labor is a period of restlessness for the dam. She paws in the whelping box, arranging and rearranging the linens you provided. She stands, lies down, stands again, sighs, paws linens and repeats. Her respiration rate will increase. This can last anywhere from one to eighteen hours. If she is not having contractions, there is nothing to do but wait. Hard labor has not yet begun.
Once her water breaks, hard labor is eminent. It may be difficult to determine if her water has broken, especially with densely coated dogs. You may notice wet linens or that she is licking her vulva. These are signs that you need to be paying closer attention to her. Typically, hard labor begins within 1-4 hours of her water breaking.
Hard labor begins when she begins visible contractions. You can see these as she compresses her abdomen, and extends her hind legs, which lasts about 5-10 seconds per contraction. She should produce a puppy within 45 minutes to one hour after hard labor begins.
What to Do If No Puppy Is Delivered
If your girl is having contractions with no puppy arriving for over 30 minutes, this is a good time to walk her around the house. Walk her in a quiet area, away from other pets, who will likely make her anxious.
As a reproductive vet said to me, “Walk, walk, walk.” Walking allows the puppy to adjust its position in the birth canal and help it move farther down the birth canal. Be prepared with a towel on your walks to dry the puppy, in case she delivers a puppy while walking.
During contractions while walking, she may look like she is making a “poop,” but instead delivers puppy and placenta in the hallway.
If she delivers on a walk, bring the puppy back to the whelping box, after you have employed all puppy revival techniques. She will be content to whelp the rest of the litter in the whelping box.
After the First Puppy Is Born
If she does not eat the placenta, offer it to her, before discarding it. It is full of iron, which will give her strength for the next delivery.
Give your girl some calcium, one or two Tums works well. You can also offer her vanilla ice cream, yogurt or cottage cheese. Mothers who reject puppies trying to nurse, often have a calcium deficiency. Do not give calcium before any puppies are born, as this can cause eclampsia.
When to Use Oxytocin
Oxytocin should NOT be given before any puppies have been born, and really you should try to avoid its use altogether during whelping. Oxytocin is frequently given to breeders by vets prior whelping. It acts to rev up the uterine contractions, and is used to counteract uterine inertia.
Administering too much can actually burst the uterus. If given too early in the whelping process, placentas can detach prematurely, causing the puppies to die before delivery. (We will discuss when to consider using oxytocin further down in this article, under Uterine Inertia).
If your vet offers you oxytocin, request that it be given to you in preloaded syringes, appropriate to the weight of your female. Discuss with your vet, when they would recommend using it and how often it can be given.
It is best to use Oxytocin after whelping, to clean out any retained placentas and avoid potential infections. The administration of Oxytocin is using a diabetic syringe with .15ml being appropriate for a 40 pound dog. If you are loading syringes yourself, please take care to note the difference between the size of various syringes; a 1ml shot would be a massive overdose of oxytocin for any size dog.
If after 1.5 hours of hard contractions, no puppy arrives, it is time for a visit to the vet. The vet can use ultrasound to determine the fetal heart beats, and whether the puppies are in distress.
Case 1: Hard Labor Began and Stopped Before Any Puppies Were Delivered
I had one girl go into hard labor, and after 1+ hours no puppy was delivered. Then contractions stopped, and she stopped giving birth.
A quick visit to the vet at the end of the day determined, via ultrasound, that the puppies’ heart rates were in the normal range. We agreed to wait until 7:00 the next morning to see if a C-section would be necessary.
In this case, the mother delivered her first puppy at 11:30 PM that night. That first puppy was stillborn, with no muscle tone, and never went into rigor mortis. I suspect he had died before contractions began, and had gone into rigor mortis in utero. It was obstructing the birth canal, until it came out of rigor. Once she passed the stillborn puppy, two more came out in quick succession. The other seven puppies were all born without incident, and all were health.
Had oxytocin been administered at one hour into the initial labor, it is likely the entire litter would have been lost.
The Whelping Pause, When Dogs Stop Giving Birth
Dogs have two horns to the uterus. As they go into labor, puppies from each horn line up to enter the birth canal. As a result, dogs tend to have puppies in pairs, usually separated by 20-30 minute spans of time, although it can vary from 5 minutes to 1+ hours. They may continue delivering pairs in quick succession or they may take extended pauses between puppies.
Once your girl has successfully delivered a litter, you will have a good idea what to expect with her future litters. In dog breeding, past is usually prologue, and any issues, such as stuck puppies or long pauses, are likely to occur in future whelpings.
Most Internet advice advises to rush to the vet if more than 2 hours elapses between puppies. This is not the best advice.
It is particularly bad advice, if your new mother is cleaning puppies and nursing them in contentment. Taking a pause to clean and tend to newborn puppies is not only normal, it’s smart. She needs time to make sure they are breathing, dry and nursing, before she starts the process over again, with the next pair or set of puppies to be delivered.
Nursing stimulates contractions. Nursing not only provides relief to the mother, but it signals that the first group of puppies, or the last clutch of puppies, have been attended to, and she is now ready to care for the next batch.
Most animals that give birth to multiples have a whelping pause. Time for mom to gather strength and for the unborn babies to continue to move down the birth canal. Even humans with twins or triplets will have a pause between deliveries.
External factors cannot change the length of the pause . Neither walking nor oxytocin will affect the length of the pause. Those stimulants only work safely, while she is actively contracting. Nursing and the progression of puppies towards the birth canal determine when she will begin actively pushing puppies through the birth canal.
How Long Can The Whelping Pause Last
Some dams pump out 10 puppies in 3 hours. Others produce 4-5 puppies then rest 2 hours before proceeding in labor. And some can wait 6-10 hours before beginning contractions again. This is a very stressful time for owners. One where they are likely to rush to the vet for a C-section. Again, if your girl is not in distress, not having contractions, let her be. Those puppies delivering later have a long way to go to get to the birth canal, especially at the tail end of a large litter delivery.
Extended Whelping Pause Time Frames
Often panicked breeders will load up their dam and puppies to head for the vet, only to find she has continued whelping in the car and delivered a puppy or more in the car or the vet’s exam room.
Case 2: Eight Hour Pause Between Puppy Deliveries
I have experienced a 8 hour whelping pause before a final, unexpected puppy arrived (x-rays did not reveal the last puppies existence). Luna had delivered five puppies, as expect, based on the x-rays taken at the vets, two days earlier. At 9:30 at night we had changed the puppy linens in the whelping box, weighed the pups and taken first photos. We went to eat and then bed, after a final peek at mom and the pups, confident that all was completed.
At 6:30 the next morning we checked on the puppies, only to find one was very dark, wet and its muzzle and legs were blueish. A quick count confirmed that a sixth puppy was newly born, probably around 6:00 that morning. Whelping of the first 5 puppies had completed around 9:00 the night before.
Other breeders tell me they have had 10-18 hours between first and final deliveries. Personally, I would not be able to wait that long between puppies, if I was certain that she had more puppies to deliver. My advice would be to seek veterinary assistance after 6 hours since the birth of the last puppy delivered, and no contractions are apparent.
Next we discuss the warning signs and milestones when whelping puppies that require a visit to the vet.
Signs Your Girl Needs Veterinary Attention
- The mother has been in active contractions for more than 60 minutes with no puppy presenting
- The mother’s contractions are weakening
- The mother is in distress: grunting, yelping or biting at her flanks or vulva
- Foul smelling discharge
- The mother appears lethargic or exhausted
- Excessive hemorrhaging
While the whelping pause is normal and to be expected, active contractions lasting more than 45 minutes are cause for concern. If the strength of the contractions is weakening, she is likely experiencing uterine inertia.
Check under the tail regularly to see if the vulva is bulging or if a sack or a face and paws are presenting from a broken sack. If the vulva is bulging or a nose and paws are peeking out of a bulging vulva, she has done 90% of the delivery, and you can help with the last 10%. You can find a quick tutorial on how to delivery a stuck puppy at home here.
If no puppy has presented yet at the vulva, she is likely experiencing uterine inertia or a stuck puppy. An oversized puppy can get stuck in the canal, blocking the progress of all of the puppies yet to be delivered.
Uterine Inertia and Oxytocin
This is the only time you might consider utilizing oxytocin during delivery. Only administer one shot of Oxytocin per 30-45 minute period. Once oxytocin is administered, you can expect her respiration and heart rate to increase noticeably, usually within 1 minute of the injection.
- Place the delivered puppies together, under a heat lamp, and cover them lightly with a hand towel, to help retain their body heat.
- Take the mother out of the puppy’s whelping box and walk her for 5 to 10 minutes. This allows the stuck puppy to shift and hopefully progress further down the birth canal. She will continue contractions on the walk.
- Check under her tail frequently for signs of an eminent delivery, after each contraction.
If no puppy presents or delivers after 20 minutes and contractions are weakening, it’s time to pack up mom and her puppies and head to the vet. At this point she will have been having contractions for over an hour without any puppy presenting for delivery.
Taking Your Dam and Puppies to the Vet
Call ahead to alert the vet practice, so the staff can be ready to receive her and the newborn puppies. Bring a hot water bottle filled with 101 degree water with you, to help keep the puppies warm. Wrap the hot water bottle in a towel to protect the pups from getting too warm. Once in the car, place the pups next to mom, with water bottle on the other side of the puppies, creating a warm pocket for them. Lightly cover the pups with a light hand towel.
With ultrasound and x-rays the vet can determine the size and position of the puppies and if a C-section is necessary. From here, your vet will advise you on how best to proceed with her delivery.
How to Tell When Whelping Is Over?
If you had an x-ray taken of her abdomen within the week prior to whelping, and you have the exact number of puppies as counted on the x-ray, you can feel fairly certain whelping is over. Unfortunately, the x-ray puppy count is off by one or two puppies 40% of the time. Even the most experienced reproductive vets can get it wrong.
If you know the dam well, you may be able to tell from her face whether whelping is over or not. Once hard labor begins, you may notice that her eyes appear sunken and she has a haggard expression on her face. This expression of strain and concern lasts throughout the whelping process. Breathing will also be slightly labored and a more rapid than normal for her. She will likely feel distracted from caring fully for her pups, by standing and repeatedly changing which side she wants to lie on or kicking a hind leg.
Once delivery is over, her normal expression should return along with an expression of contentment. The eyes will no longer look sunken; she will focus on actively cleaning and rolling puppies over. Her breathing will be relaxed and steady, with the occasional happy panting.
She will also have a waist again. You will see that where she had swelling behind her ribs with puppies and placentas, there is now a sunken area behind the rib cage. All of the excess skin now hangs down at the “milk bar.”
If the count is off, and you are expecting more puppies, make an appointment for the vet to take a confirmation x-ray. Some vets will do this free of charge, especially if they miscounted in the first place. Others will charge an office visit + the x-ray. If money is an issue, ask before making the appointment; you may be able to get one or both fees waived.
When to Use Oxytocin for a Clean Out Shot
Once whelping is over, your girl should be very reluctant to leave the whelping box. This is normal, and you should give her time to clean and feed her puppies, several hours at least. Take her for a potty and return her to the whelping box. At 8-12 hours you can give her the oxytocin cleanout shot. Take her for a walk right after the oxytocin shot. If there is a retained placenta, she will expel that and probably have her first bowel movement since whelping.
If you have any questions about this article, please leave a comment below or submit a question to me in our Ask a Breeder section.
