Raising Great Pyrenees Puppies

Raising Great Pyrenees Puppies

As you may know, our Pyrenees, Dixie, is heavy breed - expecting pups any day. Yesterday, an extremely cold day, Dixie was missing. We looked all over our place, any place she could have pups; we called the in-laws and asked them check a couple of places around their place. No Dixie. Since she has had several litters and she is a fairly good mom, I felt confident she would find a place to have her pups where she could keep them warm.

Well we didn’t find her. The other odd thing yesterday was DeeDee was laying around at the barn instead of her normal “patrolling” as though Dixie had handed over the primary guarding mission to DeeDee. DeeDee stayed around the herd all day. But still no sign of Dixie.

This morning when I went to the foot of the hill, there was Dixie. No pups; she had not whelped.

So I asked her, “Dixie, just where were you yesterday?”

At first all I got was the cute smile and the big brown eyes looking at me. But as I pressed, she finally began to give up her secrets. It seems that over the past four whelpings, she has lost several of the pups between birth and weaning – normally within the first week. She heard of a seminar on raising Great Pyrenees puppies and just thought she should attend. So late Sunday night she left, got to the seminar early and made herself look like just another Livestock Guardian Dog. The folks talked and talked and talked; and before she knew it, she had fallen asleep, missing most of the good parts of the seminar. She awakened as the seminar ended and walked home, arriving early this morning. She was not sure the effort was worth it since she had slept through most of it. But she will try to do a better job of raising this coming group of pups.

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