Puppy eaters

I have seen in a thread or two that some dams will eat their own pups, and that some people will either go to extremes to have that dam nurse the pups (restraint systems), or will come up with another system.

My question is, if a bitch does that, wouldn't it be best to take her and her pups (at least the bitch pups) out of the breeding program altogether? Being a bad mom would seem to be a very bad characteristic to have in your bloodlines. Why pass this quality on?

It was suggested that certain lines of dogs have this problem more than others. If this is true, couldn't these lines have weeded out the ones with a problem early on, and therefore not have this tendancy in the line?

 

We have a good bitch here that does that we recently discovered. I personally have not bred more than a handful of bitches over the past few years, so I don't really know if being a puppy eater would pass on to her offspring. I wouldn't think so. I think that would vary from bitch to bitch. Again, I've not had much experience with that issue though. We do know, that if this bitch gets bred again down the road, we will be prepared to pull the pups off her right away. We will see how she produces before we go through the trouble again.

 

i have a bitch that will eat every buckskin pup she throws for some crazy reason. its like shes racist ir something. still she produces excellent offspring. after her first litter (and nursing buckskin pups on my own) i followed her offspring and there have been no such problems with this in any of her pups. not to say that there wont be. but it doesnt seem to be a consistent problem

 

I beleive puppy eating is passed, jmo, I have one old gyp that is like that she has been bred 4x and I only have one pup to show for it, if bred again her pups will be hand raised, if her offspring (gyps) have the same problem they will be removed from my breeding program. I've seen it before on other yards and it rarely worked out for them and I beleive such gyps should be removed from breeding as it seems to pass on from what I've seen and my cause one to waste many years trying to make something work that just won't...........

p.s. I'm willing to try with the old gyp I talked about cause of her value to me and neither her littermates or dam showed this trait........

 

What is past down is what is imprinted on the bitch-pups. What I have heard most often are pups that have to be hand raised due to this problem with the dam. So what happens is the pups don't get imprinted with a nurturing mom as a result they don't know how to be moms. They see their pups as vermin that has caused them pain and discomfort. This problem can be fixed with an adoptive moms, that will imprint the pups in a nurturing mom way. However if the bloodline or line of dogs are known to produce very high prey driven dogs, this is just a quality in that line. It's funny how people view this as a lost or a flaw rather that "this goes with the territory"; this so-called "flaw" is a behavior that can be modified.

 

Seriously man,...... So called flaw? That can be modified? Come on.

There are/were some talented bitches that are/were horrific pup killers/eaters. I grew up with a few. Bitch would be fine the first few days, then day after day one would disappear. My folks caught on and raised them in the house, or put pups on another lactating bitch...two good daughters and grand-daughters did the same crap in the same way,...mothered or not. Needless to say, that particular family of dogs my folks worked on no longer exists. Otherwise good dogs that just can't reproduce end up being too costly, to frustrating and often just a talented dead-end.

 

mayfield bitches have a real problem with this.....but the crosses are fine

 

No one is asking you to agree with me. There is no absolute right answer or solution to this problem. This is all subjective via trail and error. You obviousely failed to read my other point on this matter, "However if the bloodline or line of dogs are known to produce very high prey driven dogs, this is just a quality in that line." whereas there may be little to no solution for fixing or modifying this behavior. Deal with it!

If you choose to drop the line, that's on you. I never past judgement on anyone for making an honest effort. Some will work with what they have, know what to expect and work within the realm of raising the pups no matter if the prey-drive behavior is past on or not.

Also this just may be a simple case of infanticied which is not unheard of in all mammalian species from human to squirrels to rats and mice.

 

^^^ We aren't talking about a high prey drivin gyp that gets excited about something and kills some or all pups I don't think thats what the op asked but your intitled to you opinioun................

 

Thanks for the replies. I guess I could ask a similar question - are there high drive, talented lines of dogs in which the dams are really good mothers? Specifically, mothers that produce enough milk and take good care of the pups? If that is true, and especially if it's common, I would think that puppy eaters simply wouldn't be worth the trouble and the chance that they might pass it on.

Or to refine the question even more, unless the bitch is of extraordinary quality, or unless you have good reason to believe that you can remove that tendancy from the bloodline with either careful breeding or by letting a gentle dam raise those pups, wouldn't the habit of baby eating be a reason to eliminate that bitch from the program?

 

Interesting that she selectively kills the buckskins.

That's good news that the offspring don't seem to carry the tendancy.

 

gladly ive never had to deal with that problem.ive only heard of one bitch being known for it.i believe there was a pup or few gained from her.what causes it?is it hightened aggression?or just no mothering instinct?even with no mothering instinct why kill them,and not just discard them?must be a worrying time for the breeder coming up to when she is about to drop a litter.especially if the litter is a well planned one.

 

There are some that are diff worth the trouble,but ive seen some put out high numbers of pup eaters.

 

Maluka's mom was a bad mom, we had to bottlefeed the whole litter. Maluka had a litter 3 weeks ago and shes a perfect mom. Im not a breeder, in fact, this is my first breeding but just sharing own experience.

 

my bitch was eating her pups i fed her liver she stop she must have been eating her pups bc her blood count might have gotta low

 

I'll tell you what, if I had a "Miss Spike", "Black Widow", "Red Baby" or a "Art's Missy" producing type bitch....you can best believe that that bitch would have a C-section on day 61 and I'd be willing to bottle feed every one of them little critters, and not think twice about whether my gyp passes on infanticide behavior. And I know I'm not alone with that thinking.

 

I don't see why you wouldn't get a wire muzzle, plenty of airflow but the bitch cant eat the pups. Any reason why this isn't done?

 

Yes, it would be easier to overlook infanticidal tendencies if you had an otherwise outstanding bitch. And if she tended to produce really nice offspring, a person might be willing to go through the trouble of raising the pups. Were the bitches mentioned here, such as Miss Spike, infanticidal? If they were great brood bitches and mothers, I would think their value would be higher than if they were puppy eaters.

Does the propensity toward puppy eating tend to occur more frequently in top quality bitches in general? Or are there plenty of really nice females (either good at performance or production) that don't tend to kill their offspring? If that is so, then the choice becomes even easier.

This is the hard thing about breeding and choosing breeding stock. It's hard to get all the good things into one individual, so you have to draw a line between the bad things you will accept and the bad things you will not accept. This might be a similar level of choice you could be faced with if you have a HA dog that is otherwise outstanding (maybe HA would be a worse attribute than infanticide). You would then have to figure out if you could keep the good qualities and breed the bad out. But you have to be realistic - that infanticide might be hard to eradicate, and that you might have greater success if you try to eliminate it quickly by not giving an infanticidal bitch a second chance.

 

That's nice for you! And maybe since the new pups were raised by a good mom, they will have a good chance to keep that quality going.

 

No one is asking you to agree with me. There is no single right answer. A solution for each case/situation may often be found through trial and error; if a solution exist at all. You obviously failed to read my other point on this matter, "However if the bloodline is known to produce dogs with high prey drive or other qualities you appreciate, the puppy-eating may just be a trait that you have to accept and deal with; since, there may be no way to modify the behavior or breed it out of the line.."

If you choose to drop such a line, that's on you. I never pass judgement on anyone who makes an honest effort. Some work with what they have, know what to expect and manage to raise pups in spite of the puppy-eating-- despite whether the behavior is inherited or not.

Since infanticide is actually quite common in nearly all species, from invertibrates to mammals, we may simply have to accept puppy-eating as a naturally occuring quirk of canine biology.



With all due respect,.......I didn't fail to read shit.....the problem arises from the fact that I actually read what you wrote,..and that you did not say what you thought you did. I apologize for the misunderstanding.

You see, had you written what I've underlined above to begin with, instead of what you actually did, your petulant response to my post would be justified.....though barely.

By the way,......I took a few minutes to sift through your latest response and attempted to clarify some of the points that I believe you wanted to make. I hope you don't mind. May I suggest that in future, you try to simplify your language and use a dictionary;....one makes fewer mistakes and sounds less like a semi-smart ass that way. Again, my apologies.