I have bred toy and mini poodles for a lot of years, and I have noticed that in the smaller ones, the smaller the liiter (fewer puppies in the pregnancy) often correlates to more problems with the whelping. My theory is that fewer puppies, the placentas get to spread out more and take up more of the uterine walls and the puppies get more nutrition and oxygen delivered, so the fetuses get bigger faster. Something you may want to consider is having her x-rayed toward the end to see how many puppies there are in there. They can also see the skull sizes, and if there looks like there might be a problem pup in there, you can schedule a c-section ahead of time and save yourself a TON of money and tears and stress. I am not knocking you at all for breeding your dog, just trying to help you see what might be unseen problems, and the cheapest, safest way to prevent them before they happen. Good luck with your litter.
Oh, and the other poster that said about small adults doesn't neccessarily mean small puppies at birth weight. My smallest one is Bella, a tiny wiry teacup poodle. She weighs three and a half pounds. At birth, she weighed Five ounces at birth! That's more than a quarter pound. Her mama was a toy, that had whelped twice before without problems, but she had to push extra hard to get that one out, and I helped a little bit and she hurt a lot when it came out. No tearing or injuries, but it was dicey and that was the last time I bred her mama. She was spayed and I kept Beensie. No babies for Beensie. Please do continue to share about your dog and her pregnancy and whelping, and rearing babies, and their graduation to new homes. I, for one, want to hear about it. And pics. Lots of pics. Thanks for sharing.
Oh, and the other poster that said about small adults doesn't neccessarily mean small puppies at birth weight. My smallest one is Bella, a tiny wiry teacup poodle. She weighs three and a half pounds. At birth, she weighed Five ounces at birth! That's more than a quarter pound. Her mama was a toy, that had whelped twice before without problems, but she had to push extra hard to get that one out, and I helped a little bit and she hurt a lot when it came out. No tearing or injuries, but it was dicey and that was the last time I bred her mama. She was spayed and I kept Beensie. No babies for Beensie. Please do continue to share about your dog and her pregnancy and whelping, and rearing babies, and their graduation to new homes. I, for one, want to hear about it. And pics. Lots of pics. Thanks for sharing.
