When Should A Puppy Be Bottle Fed?

If your dog has given birth, it can sometimes happen that you need to help the little ones feed. Usually this is not the general rule but, in order to avoid being caught unprepared, it is good to know how and when to bottle a puppy. In this article you will find all the information on this topic.

When should you give a puppy a bottle

To encourage good imprinting, the ideal is that the puppies stay with their mother and siblings for up to two and a half months. But this is not always possible due to various circumstances. Precisely in such extreme situations, you owners and animal lovers will come into play. Eg:

If the animal is an orphan

It can happen that the mother loses her life during childbirth, leaving her puppies helpless. It is a sentence to starve in the absence of outside help. Arm yourself with patience and get organized, perhaps asking for help from some friend who owns dogs or talking to a friendly veterinarian. You  will have to replace the mother, in all respects.

Lack of milk

If the litter is large, the mother may not have enough milk for everyone. In these cases, nature is severe: the strongest and most alert little ones will always be able to reach the breast first, condemning the weak and shy siblings to malnutrition. Also in this second case, using the bottle will allow you to feed the entire litter without difficulty.

Poor quality of milk

This is one of the rarest cases, but it can certainly present itself. Sometimes, due to health problems or poor nutrition, breast milk is of poor quality. This can be understood from the fact that puppies do not grow sufficiently and appear particularly weak.

The consequences for the survival of the young can be fatal. Let’s talk about dehydration and malnutrition of young dogs. Thanks to the bottle, you can properly feed all the offspring.

How should you give a puppy a bottle?

After talking about the extreme cases that could arise, now it is good to dwell on the “how” to act so that this substitute tool does its job quickly and effectively. Obviously, if you have experience with this type of situation, the job will be easier for you.

1. Use infant formula

This is a very important point, since the stomach of the young is not prepared to assimilate milk, much less that of the cow. So, in case you need to bottle a puppy, talk to your vet, but under no circumstances should you give him milk for human consumption .

Therefore, you should only use a special formula milk for dogs. This can be purchased at pet stores, as well as veterinary clinics. There are better quality or cheaper ones … The advice is not to skimp on the nutrition of your little friends.

2. Choose a suitable bottle

The second important point to consider concerns the choice of this tool. Once again, baby bottles should be avoided. After giving birth, puppies measure less than 10 centimeters, so their mouth will be smaller than a baby’s, and it requires specific characteristics that the bottle will have to respect.

In addition, the baby bottles have precise measurements that will help you manage the doses of formula to be administered. The vet will determine them and will also be able to help you and guide you on the best type of bottle to buy, to improve the feeding of newborns.

3. Bottle feeding

Now that you have everything ready, the most exciting moment arrives . To breastfeed a puppy you don’t have to pick him up. Leave the baby lying down and gently bring the bottle to his mouth. This is the natural position to drink breast milk and you will see that it will not take long to latch on and start sucking.

After giving him the bottle, you will observe that the puppy defecates at most one hour after having the baby food. If this does not happen, you will have to massage his tummy and stimulate his anus with a damp and warm cloth, thus activating the functioning of his digestive system.

If your puppies have been orphaned, this is certainly a terrible event but you will have to put the tears aside and focus on feeding the little ones. Feeding a newborn dog is not complicated at all, quite the opposite. With these simple tips we are sure that you will be able to do it without errors and soon you will be able to play with your new four-legged friends. Watching them grow up will be really exciting.