Our silky terrier Millie (better known as @thesilkiestmillie in social media world) got pregnant while I was away at my Leadership Cobb Fall Retreat this past September. My husband Marc and I agreed – after much debate – that she could have puppies at some point, but we were not thinking this early – nor could the timing have been any worse.

A conundrum to sort

We were slated to go to Barcelona, Spain for our delayed honeymoon – having gotten married last year while COVID was still so highly unpredictable. So we decided we’d take our honeymoon as our anniversary trip and opted for a mini-moon instead (made a whole video about that one – it was rather fun!). In any case, if you didn’t know, the gestation cycle of a dog is particularly short – only 63 days to be exact. That’s just a blinking two months!

Marc is the kind of guy who’s worked real hard his whole life and also doesn’t bother to plan trips for himself very much. So the fact that we pulled off this Spain trip while he had his fulltime job as an architect and I had my more than fulltime venture as an entrepreneur is none short of amazing. He told me if we didn’t take this trip, that the odds that we would ever go would be slim to none. Great.

Luckily, the lady who recently started walking Millie and Vanilli turned out to have experience in watching small pregnant toy breeds as well. A friend of hers breeds her yorkie and our sitter often watches her dog for her while she’s out of town. The angels rejoiced! PERFECT situation for us. It was the only way I could remotely enjoy the trip without incessantly worrying about Millie. Vanilli (aka Fluffy) would be fine at another sitter – since pregnant dogs should be away from other dogs for the last three weeks before whelping (labor) and for an additional three weeks afterwards when the puppies are born.

Pregnancy & Whelping Prep

Now that that was all sorted, here’s how we set about prepping for the remaining weeks of Millie’s pregnancy and whelping:

NUTRITION

Nutrition while Millie was pregnant proved challenging – but not impossible. I’ve never had kids, but I do know pregnant women’s palettes can change drastically. What used to be tasty before no longer is. You can get pica (cravings for odd mineral-tasting things like clay and ice) and what you really want can be an elusive target from day to day. Millie was exactly like that. Thankfully, I picked up a few tips from other breeders on what works when your pregnant dog no longer wants their regular kibble. The answer became plain chicken (ideally warmed up) with rice, a bit of chicken broth mixed in with the nutrient-packed kibble. Post pregnancy nutrition proved even more challenging – which you should read about in our upcoming Week One of Newborn Puppies blog. Other items that worked pre-whelping include:

• Boiled / scrambled eggs
• Turkey slices
• Turkey sausage slices
• Steak slices

…you get the idea. Gone are the days of plain old boring kibble. Bring on the tasty people food!

VET VISITS

We had two vet visits in prep for this litter:

ULTRASOUND VISIT: The ultrasound was possible around the late 20ish day mark. However, as it’s not 100% reliable (i.e. sacs of puppies can be missed on the ultrasound, especially with such tiny puppies), the next step of an x-ray would be necessary. On Millie’s ultrasound, our vet thought she spotted three puppies.

X-RAY VISIT: The x-ray visit took place in the late 50ish day mark, close to whelping. I still don’t know why it’s fine to x-ray dogs when pregnant women are warned ad nauseum not to be x-rate whatsoever at any stage of pregnancy. It’s a good thing we actually did the x-ray – as on this visit, we spotted not three but FIVE puppies! You count them by the spines and skulls you can see. It’s important to know the closest final number you can – just to ensure every puppy makes it out and every corresponding afterbirth (placenta) also makes it out. Quite important – as you can imagine. The other important reason: to gauge the size of the puppies skulls in relation to the pelvic opening of your dam (i.e. mom). Heads that are too big for the space means she is in serious likelihood of needing a c-section – something that’s best prepared for in advance (both from a timing standpoint – extremely critical – and a financial standpoint). Thankfully, it didn’t look like Millie would need one, but we had our emergency vet on standby just in case.

Can you spot all five silky malti pups in the x-ray images below?

WHELPING AREA

I’d just moved into Marc’s house during the pandemic and it had a lot of renovation projects in the works: a back door to be replaced, kitchen to refurbish, TV to be mounted – the list went on and on. Where on earth in this already packed house could we feasibly house these puppies? The only place that made sense was the open kitchen dining area we don’t use yet. So I made some quick renovations to the place just to make it nice for Millie and the puppies: an update to the flooring, painting and window treatments gave the space new life. Just what it needed!

One Saturday morning, I set out to get the bay window area painted and start on the flooring when I started to notice some new behavior from Millie. Ultimately, I discovered she was already having her puppies – six days early! You can read about that interesting adventure in the upcoming Toy Breed Labor and Delivery blog post.

In addition to prepping the area, there were some supplies to obtain:

• Whelping Kit: includes things like puppy ID collars (although I knew most kits’ collars would be too big for our tiny pups), a thermometer, different types of bottle feeders, alcoholic wipes and more.
• Scale: to weigh the puppies both at birth and everyday / week afterwards.
• Notebook: to record weights and other important notes, like ENS (early neurological stimulation) treatments.
• Birthing Sheets: to record the birthing date and times, any unique markings on the puppies (what they are, what color and where they are), etc.
• Thermal Curtains: Since there’s a big bay area in that room, I thought it would be appropriate to get some curtains to better control the room’s temp (see the heating lamp point below).
• Towels and Whelping Pads: because labor (i.e. whelping) is messy, there would be lots of fluids to catch and clean.
• Heating Lamp: puppies actually can’t regulate their own temperature at birth – and they won’t be able to do it for several weeks after birth either. Additionally, they can’t see or hear. All they have when born are two senses: smell and touch.
• Swimming Pool: the less expensive alternative to the $300-400 whelping areas you can get online on Amazon and otherwise. If we had time, we could have built one as well, but that wasn’t an option at this point. So a shallow small kiddy pool would definitely do the trick.

There were plenty of things in the whelping kit in particular that actually weren’t needed when it came down to it.

PUPPY PREP

This being our first (and potentially final?) litter ever, I was quite excited to prepare for them. In addition to their whelping area, nutrition and pregnancy prep, I also managed to find some cute newborn puppy caps for them to wear in photos at some point along with some other fun photo op props. I also tried some yarn as ID collars (since I was certain, again, that the ID collars in a whelping kit or otherwise would prove to be too large) – but it turns out that their markings are enough to differentiate them. Still, the yarn bows make for lovely, sweet photos and that’s enough for me!

Overall, there’s a lot to prepping for a pregnant dog – especially a small breed one. There’s a lot of truth to what my dad alluded to – that dogs pretty much handle their pregnancy all by themselves. But I was glad we were prepared should we need to step in at any point for the life of the mom and pups. So grateful for a safe whelping session (albeit a long one)! Check out the labor and delivery blog post to learn what that was like!

What are your ideas on how to prepare for new pups?