Weaning

Weaning the puppies off their mother is a little more than just dumping out some dry kibble and expecting the pups to eat it. The pups vary on when they’re willing to start eating solid food. Generally speaking, sometime between weeks three and four they will be ready. Occasionally there’s a special case, like big pups without a mom, that we try to entice earlier.

We ultimately want the pups to eat dry kibble because that’s what the majority of owners will feed. Gertie’s pups are only three weeks old and don’t have teeth so we have to offer them food they don’t have to chew.  To start out we use a 50/50 mixture (by volume) of Esbilac® milk replacer and dry food. The dry food gets soaked in the milk replacer until it is completely soft, then it’s pulverized with a stick blender to make a creamy gruel. There are special weaning foods available, but we don’t find any advantage in using them. We always use Esbilac® brand milk replacer because the pups never seem to have a problem with it. The dry food is Science Diet® Small Bites because that's what the pups will eat when they go back to the Shelter.

The gruel is warmed to between 90°F and 100°F to come close to mom's body temperature. We start out feeding each pup separately on a paper plate. Not all of the puppies are always ready to be weaned at the same time. If one’s not ready we just try again at the next feeding. Once they are all eating gruel we slowly alter the blend to 100% kibble, but we soak it in a little hot water instead of milk replacer. Then we reduce the amount of water until they are eating dry kibble. The whole process takes about a week and a half.

Although they will be eating solid food the pups will still want to nurse. But the demand will be less on Gertie so she will produce less milk and be able to gain some weight. The process of drying her out can begin and that’s critical because she can’t be spayed or go up for adoption until she’s no longer producing milk.

Teslin

Martha

Gus

Barbara

Michelle