puppies

[forgetful195]

my dog is a large breed, part blue healer, and not sure what else. she had 10 puppies on 9/3/06. this evening, she layed on one, and killed it... is this normal?

[divegirl]

Hi Forgetful, firstly, did she have these pups in march or are you from the USA[and reverse the date] and they are only a few days old?
If they were born in March and we are talking about a six month old pup....then yes this is pretty unusual, surely the pup would have been big enough to get out of her way!!
If they were only born a few days ago then it's a different story. Bitches will sometimes, especially with a large litter accidently suffocate a puppy, it's hard her her to keep track of where they all are! A bitch may also intentionally euthanise a puppy, they seem to have an inbuilt sense of something being wrong with a pup, and will either take this route or push the pup away and refuse to feed it.....they do know whats best. Although that said, I have raised pups that my bitches have 'pushed' away, but it takes a lot of hard work[but very rewarding].
Please let us know which one of these applies and we may be able to offer more advice.
Lisa x

[lankeela]

I am sure you mean they are only a few days old, and this can happen in any size breed. What you should have is what they call pig rails in the whelping box, which are bars round the inside edge of the whelping box, so that the pups can get underneath and not be laid on by the mother.

It may be that the pup has died from natural causes, and if so there is nothing that could have been done, and as divegirl has said it might have had something wrong with it, and the mother has just ignored it and left it to die. Nothing you could have done, just make sure the rest of the litter has a chance to get away from her if they need to.