Last night I was talking with a long time breeder who had 2 females she bought for breeding that, although they were having heat cycles, had never managed to get pregnant. She also had a couple of males who, not for lack of trying, had never gotten a female pregnant.
We did some testing on her dogs, and found a deep, long-standing mineral deficiency. To remedy this situation, her husband went out and bought a 4# livestock mineral block, and put it in a bucket, then poured water over it.
He intended to pour the water, after it set for a few minutes with the minerals in it, into their water dishes. What happened though, was a complete surprise.
He said he had never seen his dogs go after water like they did that water.
One male dog drank half the bucket before he could even pour it in his water dish. The others, and there are several, were just as excited to drink the water. We will see if this changes how they breed.
I am fully expecting them to have normal, productive heat cycles, as well as bigger, healthier litters.
Diet is Everything
A few months ago I got a call from a breeder who inquired about using my male standard poodle as a stud for her female.
She wanted to use him because she was familiar with his pedigree from her 40 years of breeding and showing poodles with the AKC. She knew more then I did about his pedigree.
Her female is an older dog, and she thought maybe she could get 1-3 puppies out of her, and this would be her last breeding. I asked her what she feeds her dog and suggested she increase her minerals and meat before trying to breed her. She was just getting kibble at the time, and really couldn’t afford anything else.
When it was time, the dog came to my house and stayed with our stud a week to be bred. During that week, I fed her raw eggs, raw meat, bones, and healthy well water so she would get lots of minerals. Eight weeks later she whelped (gave birth) to 6 puppies.
Once again I asked the breeder about her dog’s diet, and learned that she was still just continuing to feed them all kibble.
Diet/nutrients mean everything to the health of animals as well as humans.
If you want healthy puppies, healthy breast milk for those puppies, and for them to be disease free, the best thing you can do is feed them a nutrient rich diet, free of chemicals, preservatives, and other toxins.
A week later I learned 2 of the puppies had died. It breaks my heart. This woman, well-meaning as she is, is of the same mindset as many of the breeders I speak with. They are all so used to losing puppies, even up to most of the litter and they think its normal. I will know in a few more weeks if any of them in that litter survive.
We have all heard the saying “In nature, the strong survive and the weak die”. I know this is true, and it’s because of the lack of appropriate food, water and shelter that this tends to happen. We, however, have the opportunity to change this when the animal is in our care. We can change the stats quo. All it takes is to make sure the mother is well-fed (meaning not just giving standard, processed american dog food) and cared for, and therefore all of the puppies have a good chance to be the “strong that survive”.