Millie, our Silky Terrier, had her pups (Silky Maltis – a mix of silkies and malteses) on a Saturday when I was home alone. Marc, my husband, was out at a conference. We thought the puppies wouldn’t be coming until the next weekend coming up so it seemed fine for him to take his trip (albeit on the heels of our honeymoon!). So I figured this would be a great weekend to prep Millie’s whelping area.

Whelping Area Prep

In this older home with plenty of renovation projects to do, the only feasible area that could work for whelping (breeder-talk for labor and delivery) was our unused kitchen dining area. It had a nice big bay window for plenty of natural light and the kitchen table that was there had just been given away. Since I knew (A) the puppies would spend their whole first eight weeks of life here before going to their “furever” homes and (B) we’d be taking lots of pictures and video in this area, I needed it to not only be puppy-ready but Instagram/internet-ready, too!

Items to do to prep the area included:

1. Painting the walls
2. Adding thermal curtains over the bay area windows (puppies can’t regulate their own temperature for weeks)
3. Overlaying a temporary floor
4. Installing a new vent cover (the old one was rusted and broken)
5. Setting up her whelping pool and pads

Signs my silky terrier was about to go into labor

As I was doing my whelping area work, I noticed a few things that made me think Millie might be whelping much sooner than expected. Her original date was supposed to be 4 November 2022. This was 29 October – six days earlier! Even so, I felt I was okay and Marc should be able to make it home in time to help, since these signs typically mean you still have 12-24 hours before whelping actually begins:

1. Panting: Being such an athletic dog, I’ve very rarely seen Millie actually pant in her life. Not even after walks or during playtime. She was panting now with her tongue out and everything. Clue number one.
2. Refusing food: I’d tried all her favorite foods as of late – peanut butter, ham, turkey, chicken. Normally, she’d be jumping up and down and salivating over these treats. I knew there was a problem when she wouldn’t eat those!
3. Restlessness: She couldn’t seem to get comfortable no matter where she was.
4. Discharge: She had some gooey discharge dripping out every now and then after peeing on her walk outside. Very slow to move as well. I was taking baby steps with her, almost like walking a very elderly dog.
5. Dilated eyes: I could see her pupils seemed dilated – even without shining a flashlight on them.
6. Nesting behavior: Occasionally, she would run upstairs and go to her favorite safe spot in the house – under our bed (it’s the place she would normally escape to when we weren’t home and she was scared). She was going under the bed and digging at the carpet – like she was trying to dig a hole. (Of course, I put a stop to that).
7. Begging for attention: It was like she was pleading for me to stay by her, wanting to make sure I was with her. She wanted to be constantly petted and watched. But again, I thought I had at least 12-24 hours before any whelping started. With the back of my sticky floor hands, I tried to pet her here and there – still working to get her whelping area finished up.
8. Contractions: The unmistakable sign of labor. I knew whelping was imminent when her contractions started. Her belly tightened up hard and she stuck her legs out straight each time. Never wincing, whining or howling. Just tensing up hard.

I texted Marc to let him know these puppies were going to be coming sooner than we thought.

Temperature Drop: Another sign to look for but that I couldn’t check yet was her temperature. It always drops prior to whelping. The whelping kit I’d purchased that included her thermometer wasn’t set to arrive until tomorrow! Still, I thought I must have some time. Maybe it would get here in time.

Finally, the floor was finished and I could let Millie try out her whelping spot: a plastic kiddie pool lined with circular, washable whelping pads and a few blankets for comfort. The only thing to add next would be the heat lamp, but I could do that later when the puppies were actually here, I thought.

As soon as the pool was set up, I picked up Millie who’d been in her bed for the past hour by me and placed her in her spot – just to let her try it out and get comfortable with it. As soon as I set her down, the “puppy bubbles” (as I call them – the amniotic sacs) began to emerge!

Puppy Arrival

Hooooooly heck, the puppies are already coming!! And the whelping kit wasn’t even here yet! Quickly I thought of what was in the kit that I could substitute for in the house:

1. Towels: check
2. Aspirator: little booger-sucker plastic device, check
3. Clorox wipes: check
4. Unwaxed dental floss to tie off umbilical cords (if needed): check
5. Scale to weigh puppies: check (I used my kitchen scale for food)
6. Notebook and pen to record puppy’s weight, time and date of birth, special identifying markings, etc.: check
7. Heat lamp: check

I ran around like a mad-woman, flying around the house like a crazed Olympic sprinter trying to find all the items as fast as I could so I could get back to Millie. What else? That’s all I could think of at the moment.

I reminded myself of what my country born-and-bred dad said when I first told him Millie was having puppies. He’d been surprised that dogs needed an ultrasound (let alone an x-ray later to confirm litter size). “When I was growing up, we never even knew when the dogs were having puppies. They just went under the porch and came out with puppies!”

He was right about that. In the wild, dogs were very self-sufficient. They had their pups, cleaned the location themselves (even eating the placentas and all other evidence to get rid of as much scent as possible from predators), moved to safer, whelping-scent free den and raised their pups there. It’s just today with these small, toy designer breeds, sometimes these dogs need c-sections. Because in the wild, had the skulls been too big to pass through the pelvic bones of the mother, they all would have just died. And that would have been natural, too. So that’s why we do ultrasounds and x-rays, c-sections and more when we actually care for the pups and mom to live and thrive.

Whelping Process

Puppies come out in these amniotic sacs. They’re surprisingly dry to the touch! Placentas follow afterwards. Mom is designed to do all the work – as she would have in the wild to ward off predators. She tears open the sac, gets rid of all evidence as best she can (which includes eating the placenta and umbilical cord – cutting it herself with her teeth) and licking the pups clean. Clean puppies then make their way over to her nipples to nurse.

While it seems gross to us humans to have the mom eat the amniotic sac, placenta and all the leftovers, it’s actually fairly genius by design for dogs. The sac contains hormones that help her with milk production and her eating it inverts it upwards, letting any final nutrients and other good stuff for the pups pass through the umbilical cord before she removes it. The puppies nursing her also aid in her contractions to birth the other pups.

All of this generally happens without you, but the parts you’ll want to be prepared for are:

• Umbilical Cords: Helping mom cut off the umbilical cord if needed (likely not). If so, you’d want very blunt scissors for this, not razor sharp scissors.
• Placentas: Throwing away the placentas if she doesn’t get rid of it (only had to do that with the first one for her).
• Crying and Drying: Using your suction tool to clear the nose and mouth airways as best as possible. Gently drying and rubbing the pup with a towel in your hands to try to warm it up and get it to cry is also helpful if mom is pre-occupied.
• C-Sections: Thankfully, we didn’t have to do this and – generally – this is what the x-ray is for ahead of time. (I still don’t know why it’s fine to x-ray pregnant dogs when it’s not fine to x-ray pregnant humans, but let me know if you know that answer in the comments below!). Not only does the x-ray show puppy count, but the size of the skulls can be measured against the size of her pelvic opening. If the skulls are clearly bigger, then a c-section definitely needs to be carefully planned as not to take the puppies too early. Luckily, Millie’s pups seemed to be fine to not have a c-section, but I still kept a close eye on her to see if she might be struggling and pushing for a long time to no avail. Thankfully, that didn’t happen for us.
• Caring for mom: Another thing you can do is care for mom in this process. She’ll be tired. She’ll need breaks sometimes. She may want lots of petting and attention (which ours did). And you’ll want to just clean her with a warm rag when you have the opportunity. Ours got pretty messy with a sac breaking under her leg once and her whole bottom half was wet on one side with fluids. They say you shouldn’t give mom a bath for a few days afterwards, but you can at least wipe her down.

Millie’s contractions started around 1pm that day. The first puppy arrived around 3pm and the final puppy made it into the world successfully around 10pm at night. Marc made it home just in time to see that final puppy arrive. The final pup was originally named “Peaches” for the color of her ribbon and her new litter nickname is Crèma.

At the time of writing this, the puppies are currently four weeks old and doing well! You can check them out at silkymalti.com, on Facebook at The Silkiest Millie and on Instagram at @thesilkiestmillie. See you around!

Visit silkymalti.com to learn more about our pups!