On any given day, our California campus kennels are buzzing with newborn puppies with their fuzzy faces, soulful brown eyes and wagging tails. Our professional canine welfare neonatal staff welcomes approximately 800 pups into the world each year, all of which are born into a warm and nurturing environment under round-the-clock supervision. Our 24-hour a day attention allows for:
- Whelps any time of day or night ("whelp" is the canine term for "birth")
- Care and feeding of newborns and their mamas
- Efficient administration of medications
- Oversight of veterinary treatment
- Ongoing puppy socialization
With all of this attention, guide dog puppies can't help but get off to a good start. Staff and volunteers ensure that all of their earliest needs are met, from health care and nutrition to socialization and human interaction.
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Long before our puppies are even born, they have been receiving the utmost in care while they are in the womb. Pregnant female breeding stock dogs are brought to our California campus about a week before their litters of puppies are due (gestation for dogs is 63 days). To prepare for whelping, they are put in stalls that contain plastic wading pools lined with newspaper. The whelping kennel is heated and cooled with an air exchange system that maintains clean air and an even temperature; additionally, the floors of the stalls are warmed with radiant heating. There are a number of stalls equipped with closed-circuit cameras that allow the kennel staff to keep an eye on the expectant moms around the clock.
When labor begins, the females start to "nest"—tearing the newspaper into small pieces and settling into the pools. During the whelp, the canine welfare neonatal staff is present to monitor the labor and delivery and assist when needed. This assistance may involve:
- Assessing fetal heart rates
- Qualifying uterine contractions
- Resuscitating newborn puppies
- Clamping bleeding umbilical cords
- Feeding females tired from a long whelp
The newborn puppies are weighed daily for the first five to seven days of their lives to ensure they are gaining weight properly. If a puppy's growth is lagging, the pup may be bottle-fed or tube-fed with supplemented milk or formula. As a health precaution for the newborn puppies, only the staff members working in the whelping kennel that day are allowed to go into that kennel.
The puppies spend their first three weeks in the wading pool with their mother and littermates to nurse. At 3 weeks of age, they graduate from the wading pool and are put on the floor on shredded newspaper; they start eating solid food and are slowly weaned. They are fed a high-quality dry puppy food softened with warm water three times each day.
