# Keep mother separated from puppy?



## Bridget (Apr 5, 2004)

An overview of the situation: There is only one puppy remaining from Ashley, our small terrier foster dog's litter. This puppy will be 5 weeks old next week and will be staying with us full-time starting Friday, for a few weeks until she can be adopted. Up to now, the puppy has been with us only on weekends and we have kept her separated from Ashley, although Ashley does appear to know she is in the house. Early on, Ashley displayed emotional turmoil, protective instincts, etc. regarding her puppies, which is the reason we kept them separated. (The puppies were being bottle fed because Ashley wasn't taking care of them.) My question is will Ashley recognize the puppy as her own after 4 weeks of separation? And is this likely to cause her to regress into emotional issues? It would be much easier on us if we didn't have to keep Ashley and the puppy separated for the next few weeks; however, we can if necessary. Any opinions are welcome, thanks.


----------



## selzer (May 7, 2005)

I would not leave the puppy with this mother when I was not right there to watch them together, probably for the full three weeks. 

When I had Cupcake, from the first the mother was loving and concerned and careful with her:



























While she did suckle, I had to tube feed and bottle feed her until she was weaned. She was tiny but her mother loved to play with her, and was extremely careful up into the eighth week. 

I never was concerned that the mother would be aggressive at all toward her, or even play too roughly.

I am afraid that your bitch might not recognize what she needs to with the puppy or even just be careful enough not to hurt her. I think you have to look at this as though you were brining home a five week old pup and introducing it to your adult dog. Some interaction would be good only so long as it is positive -- any sign of aggressiveness in the dam and I would just keep them totally separated. She might be jealous of the pup, she may see the pup as foreign, and aggressive toward it. It is such an unknown at this point. 

Good luck for the next three weeks. The pup is too young to be taken out for socialization with other dogs, if you have a very stable dog, a GSD maybe, it would be good for the pup to have some dog-dog interaction. But only if it is a very stable dog. Interaction with another good dog will be invaluable at this point in the pup's development. But if the interaction is bad it can be terrible.


----------



## Bridget (Apr 5, 2004)

OK, got it. I think Corina, our black lab, will be socializing the pup. If she will that is...last weekend Corina showed an appalling lack of interest in the puppy. Guess we will plan to keep mother and pup separated, maybe try an introduction, but only with supervision. 

Ashley wasn't mean to her puppies, but she was just so stressed out over the whole thing that she couldn't care for them properly.


----------

