Some might think my life in between litters is pretty boring, and yeah, I do think some of my content is pretty lame after all the puppies go home. I also suddenly have so much time on my hands that I don’t know what to do with myself (even though I have a million and one things to catch up on because raising puppies consumes my every waking, and sometimes sleeping hours). But this is actually the opposite. Now is the fun part, and is probably one of the reasons Adeline and I have such a strong bond. Now we condition and prepare.
Recovery for Mama
Adeline has had a long 3.5 months of recovery. I still don’t think she is fully there, but I have seen the signs of her finally getting out of that hormonal stage of postpartum. Last time I had no idea what I was doing, and struggled to manage between attention with the litter, and attention on Adi. The first time I had 8 lives depending on me, and that stretched me pretty thin. This time around was no better because I had Mama, an older puppy we acquired, and 4 little ones. All of which were on different schedules, had different needs, and this time I was working a full time job as well. Let’s just say Alex and had to help out a lot! He did it happily, but it definitely was an adjustment.
Adi also had complications this last litter. For those who don’t know. Adi got Mastitis that very quickly turned into an abscess on us, and raptured. It was a scare few days with her, but she was fine in the end, we kept it clean, and I monitored her 24-7, and after 3 extremely long weeks, it finally closed. She was not happy about the kennel rest, but I didn’t have much choice with it being so muddy. We all survived and she healed. But new we are ready to begin the conditioning portion of the recovery process.
Conditioning
Mama dogs get a lot of rest after having puppies, and get to enjoy a lot of downtime. So they end up loosing quite a bit of muscle tone. Add the kennel rest this time around and you can imagine the increased rest time didn’t help. We did hand walk her to her potty spot which was 2 flights of stairs and a bit away. So she got movement, we made sure of that, but not much else during that time. Most Mama dogs also loose a lot of weight after having puppies because their bodies are focused on feeding those hungry babies. Which is why we switch the Mama over to puppy food while she is nursing. We have even chosen to keep feeding her puppy food during the whole healing process to help make sure she was getting enough protein.
I am proud to say she did keep her normal weight. Only dipping to about 41 lbs, which has been her normal. But after looking at her this time around, I’ve decided I would like her a little heavier than that, especially when she has muscle on her body too. So we have been monitoring her weight and the goal is to keep her roughly around 43 lbs.
Though she is switched over to adult dog food again, we are feeding her an extra amount as well as some of the toppers that she gets. We have added walks back in as well as play time with the girls outside. She has absolutely loved getting back to a normal routine. We will continue on this path for as long as it takes to getting her back to normal.
Timeline
From what I have gathered so far, and this information is specific to Adi (I’ll update as we have other dogs have puppies, but for now this is the baseline I have), it takes about 3-4 months for hormones to level out to the normal, 3 months for the shedding to stop, and 4 months for the weight to fully come back. This is all time after whelping a litter. It took me 2 months to condition her after her hormones leveled out, and I will be curious to see how long it’ll take this time around. I do imagine her coat will take a while longer because we shaved the underside this time around, and I had to cut the fur around her wound to help keep it clean. She does currently have a side shorter than the other, and it drives me nuts. It has come a long way in the last two months, but with the shedding and how thin her coat is right now, it’s noticeable. Which is another reason why you see her so often in her coat right now to help keep her warm.
In summary, it takes about 6 months for them to fully recover. Which is why a lot of breeders choose not to breed back to back. Adi is more of a 9 month cycle dog, but I still would not have bred her the cycle immediately after her first litter. I did not feel she was ready. We have very, very loose plans of maybe breeding this summer (it will be her last litter), but more than likely I am thinking we will wait until the spring of next year for her.
This was a rough whelping and I want to make sure she is 100% before we do her last litter. We will of course keep watching her and how she progresses. With her age as well though, we may not get the chance. It all goes back to our core belief “We believe in the health of our dogs above all else”, so anything I say today is subject to change. Life is wild and crazy, and different things happen. So we have to be adaptable.
Conclusion
I hope this helps bring some insight into the world behind dog breeding. If you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out, or comment below. I will do my best to respond to everyone, if I do not respond, it is probably because your question deserves it’s own blog post. So be on the look out for more details in the future.
We do want to thank you for your support on this journey. You make this all possible, every like, every comment, every question, every share. It all helps. Not just to bring attention to our page, but to help get some of this information out there to other people. There is a lot of shady things happening in the dog world, and in the world of breeding, and safe, ethical practices are more important than ever. So thank you for supporting.
From all of us at Sage House Pups, we hope you all have a wonderful day, and we hope to see you next time. Bye!
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