Ten Days Old: Supplementing, Five Generations Under One Roof and (Micro) Chaos Theory

​The puppies have gained amazingly.  We like to see them double their birth weight at ten days – they’re pushing triple.  Everyone’s fat and shiny and quite precocious. They’re showing huge will to get up on their legs and walk, and a few of them are pooping on their own.  We’ve now got five generations of Madcap Bull Terriers under our roof – more about that, later.

On the topic of supplementing a litter, as with almost everything else in dogs, there's no one right answer, it depends on a number of variables, and it varies tremendously from breed to breed. I have learned my lesson that just because a bitch CAN feed a large litter, does not mean that she SHOULD. Pippi’s mother, Daphne stayed in the box 24/7 with her second litter and they nursed in shifts just about continually.  She was dripping milk and easily fed all 8 puppies - and she also wound up with eclampsia, which I hope none of you ever have to experience because it's scary as all get out.

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The bottom line, for me, is that Bull Terriers are not really "big litter" dogs - I think a well cared for Golden Retriever or a Rottweiler might be able to handle a huge litter and be just fine, but I don't think you can trust things will be OK with a Bull Terrier bitch and a large litter, no matter what you feed her. This is what what my breed mentors said and did with their litters and, through hard experience, I've come back to their advice. Even though Pippi is making plenty of milk, we’ve begun supplementing the puppies with goat milk.

We do everything in our power to get as many calories with quality calcium into our bitches as possible, but I still believe there are some breeds that just can't safely handle nursing a huge litter.

There’s a behavioral aspect to this, as well.  Pippi does not stay in the box continually with the puppies, so when she gets in to feed them, they literally stand up on their little legs and start swarming like screaming cockroaches.  The sound and the motion are truly alarming. I’ve seen bitches give a keening pack of puppies that quick, darting back and forth look that appears to me to be more prey drive than maternal instinct.   Not interested in testing that theory, so we quiet down the puppies by giving them a little goat milk delivered on a cosmetic sponge before letting Pippi back in. 

Use plain non-latex cosmetic sponges and trim a little off the sides to fit your puppies' mouths. I hear some sponges have added medications - don't buy that kind, buy the kind with nothing added.

The rule of thumb for orphaned puppies is 1 cc per ounce of body weight for a full meal replacement - that's way more than you need as you still want your puppies to nurse.   I just a give a few ccs to take the edge off.  For a 2 pound puppy I do 6-12 ccs, depending on how vocal they are. 

Times nine. It's just a lot of puppy to keep feeding. We're calling him Phineas, by the way.

I don’t always do all the puppies – even if I can knock down a few of them a little, I can put the other ones on to get started. The ones that already had some milk from the sponge will then wait for the teats without doing their “Night of the Living Dead” routine.

You need to find yourself a good syringe to do this. This one is a little small for the job but it has a nice rubber plunger that will glide smoothly.

I bought this one without checking and I was furious when I started using it. It sticks and then jumps forward and shoots milk all over the place. Even though sponge feeding is relatively safe, there's always an aspiration hazard when milk starts flying around so don't buy syringes with hard plastic plungers like this one.

You want to use goats milk, not cow's milk. Goat milk is made up of smaller molecules that are easier to digest.  Cow milk can really upset the puppies' tummies.  I have tried goat milk "replacer" in the can and found it to be awful - gave my puppies gas and made them colicky. Go figure, puppies don't do well when fed soybean oil.  If you were feeding an orphaned puppy, goat milk might not be enough - at least not this summer goat milk which is very light.  In the fall the milk has a layer of cream on it so you might get by with that, but if you're feeding orphaned puppies, my suggestion is to get a good home made milk replacer recipe and skip the canned/powdered stuff.  

The goat milk should be just warm. I like to use a ceramic bowl as it seems to keep the milk at a good temperature for longer.

Here's a little film we made so you can see the mongol hordes in action, and how sponge feeding them knocks them  back to, if not civilized, at least manageable.

A couple of tips about sponge feeding:

1. I fed the puppies with a sponge when they were two days old and they took to it right away without question. But I did not sponge feed them from day 3-8. When I tried to sponge feed them again at nine days old, they were having none of it.  The trick, I found, is to wait it out.  I pick each puppy up, open their mouth a little and put the sponge in so some milk gets on their tongue.  If they nurse, fantastic.  If they don't, they get to go back in the pile and reflect on their hunger.  I rotate through them this way and find that most of them will take the sponge on the second try. 
2. My puppies much prefer the smaller sponge - it's more flexible and I imagine more like a real teat.  However, I'm not convinced that they couldn't suck it right down their throats if given a decent chance.  I keep a firm grip on the sponge and I also find that resting my fingertips on their gums gives them something to push against, which they seem to like.

Someone took this prodigious crap all by himself.

I have dug him out from under Pippi many times in the past ten days

I know that some breeders of other breeds would be horrified to hear that we crate our novice moms between feedings, but if you want to keep an entire litter of Bull Terrier puppies alive, it’s usually necessity.  I can’t tell you how many stories I have heard where the bitch was doing so well with her brood that the breeder though she could get up and take a quick shower – and came back to a dead puppy that mom stepped on/lay down on and crushed.  So if we want ANY sleep or bio breaks in the first 2 weeks, we need to crate our bitches or risk losing puppies.  Always exceptions to the rule, of course, and I’ve heard of (and had) some great Bull Terrier moms, but I don’t think it’s the norm.


This topic points up the importance of having a breed mentor, as opposed to a general mentor when it comes to whelping litters. The variations between breeds is HUGE (and wonderful, and fascinating) and you do need to have someone in your breed brief you on the peculiarities of your breed when it comes to raising a litter.   




I love reading well written stories about breeders and the history of their dogs, but I realize not everyone does, so I’m putting what follows as a “bonus” at the end of our ten day blog. 

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With Pippi’s litter, we have five generations under one roof.  Their stories, and the story of how I came to be writing this blog to you about this litter, is as good an example as any of how the butterfly wing can move the mountain. 

but•ter•fly ef•fect noun
(with reference to chaos theory) the phenomenon whereby a minute localized change in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere

If you ask me the secret to having such longevity in our dogs, I can’t really say for sure.  Yes we feed raw organic and grow much of what our dogs eat.  Yes, we do limited vaccinations and we spend an astonishing amount at the vet each year. We’ve got a nice acre fenced in for them, and they all get lots of enrichment and interaction with us.  But really a lot comes down to the luck of the draw, and we’ve been very fortunate through the years.

Ruby - Great Great Grandmother   (Ch Corsaire Carpe Diem of Madcap VA, RN, NA, NAP, NJP, RL-2) 

Ruby’s our grand dame – 14.5 years old and as vital as ever.  Victoria Corse called me out of the blue in April of 2001 and just said, “You’re taking this puppy.” 

A great photo of a great show girl. I do, however, remember being terrified when this picture was taken as she'd spotted a dog walking nearly within striking range. Note the death grip on the leash. Good times.

I went to see her and, indeed, she was a stunner. She showed like a house on fire in the breed ring, is fun as heck as a pet and was a terrific performance dog. She also wants to mix it up with just about any dog she meets. As you can imagine, getting her to reliably perform around other dogs was a feat.  Anyone who’s taken my Attention as a Behavior seminar can thank Ruby, because she taught me everything I know about teaching a dog to ignore her surroundings.

Yes, I showed her in agility and rally and she loved it. She was in the top 5 APDT Level Two Rally dogs one year.

Augie - Great Grandfather (Ch. Madcap Veni Vidi Vici, RL-1)

A head like his mother - beautiful in profile and still filled and powerful right down to the end of the muzzle.

Did I mention how smart he is? That's him on the cover, BTW

I bred Ruby to the most sweet, soft Bull Terrier we could find (who conveniently also had the beautiful shoulder construction that Ruby needed) and produced Augie, who truly looks and acts like Ferdinand the Bull.  Lover of cats, foster mother to orphan puppies, surrogate parent to guinea fowl keats, tireless puppy babysitter - he’s just a happy and sweet guy.  

Augie didn't so much jump as fling himself at the obstacles with abandon

He’s gorgeous, moves like a dream, and also happens to have one of the prodigiously bad under bites I have ever seen.  The fact that he could finish his championship with that bite is testament to just how beautiful he is.  As it turns out, that bad under bite is possibly one of the best things that ever happened to me.  More on that, later.

Zulu - Great Grandmother (Ch TNG N Buoy's Concrete Blonde ROM, VAX, RA, NA, NAJ, AXP, OJP)

I kept running into June Krukenkamp with her young white bitch at the specialties.  The bitch was pretty but still immature and kept getting passed over, but I really liked the bitch and made it a point to spend time with her.  Her temperament was beyond delightful - a perfect combination of Bull Terrier spark riding on a “hail fellow well met” attitude.   When June mentioned that she was thinking of placing her, I jumped at the chance to lease her and breed her to Augie.

That killer front!

I had no intention of keeping Zulu, but Zulu decided she was mine and was not taking no for an answer.  And she’s turned out to be so wonderful and so deep in so many ways, I’d really need a whole blog just to talk about her.  She’s the start of our “can do” bitches – whatever we ask of them, they deliver in spades.  Best of Variety at specialties? Sure.  ROM championship. Of course. Group placements? Roger.  ROM champion offspring?  Absolutely.  Neutral dog for seminars with reactive dogs?  Yes.  Puppy socializer? Affirmative. Agility, obedience, rally, water sports?  Yes, indeedy.  Zulu can never die; I don’t know what I’ll do without her.

Daphne - Grandmother 
(GCH Madcap When In Rome ROM, NAP, NJP)

This photo tells you everything you need to know about Daphne. She's as cuddly as she looks.

So then came the wonderful Augie x Zulu litter of 9, one of which is Daphne. She’s following in her mother’s “can do” footsteps in every way, except that she’s added Movie Star to her resume - Daphne and her first litter are the subject of  our film Puppy Culture.   As of this writing, Daphne’s produced two AKC Grand Champions and two ROM champions, and there’s more where that came from.  Right now she’s delighted to be retired from the whelping box and moving on to the agility ring.

Mother - Pippi (GCH Madcap Jump The Broom, ROM)

We bred Daphne to frozen semen from a dog who, in my opinion, never got the recognition or use that he should have because he was tri colored (long story, but Bull Terrier people don’t like tri coloreds).  We got a super litter, one of which is Pippi.  Pippi is really different from other Bull Terriers that I have known and is incredibly socially motivated – she does agility with me for the pure joy of it – no food or toys required.  She’s also the only Bull Terrier I have ever observed to learn by imitation – she learned to sit up on her hind legs by watching the other dogs do it.  

She quickly earned her Grand Championship and ROM championship and she’s taking her first turn in the whelping box with this litter. 

Pippi at work

The Puppies 

Daphne and Pippi were line bred, so we chose to go out to an English dog named Ch Emred Devil's Spy when we bred Pippi.  We are super fortunate that it it appears to have clicked, and so far the puppies look outstanding. 

So that brings us to the fifth generation, which are these little babies – but first a small back track…


What Was That About Augie’s Bite?

So, in that Augie Zulu litter, there was a puppy that I called Nora. Nora was a “wow” puppy.  She was my pick from the start and I just adored her.   As luck would have it, she also turned out to be the only one out of those nine puppies to inherit her father’s horrendous bite. At about 5 months old, her bite shot under so fast and so far, I swear you could hear it move. I was devastated, of course but I decided to keep her anyway.  

This was perhaps not the greatest situation as I was running on two other litter mates and already had four big dogs and I was single at the time and had a more than full time corporate job.  So when I got a long and heartfelt email from a guy who seemed to offer the perfect home in every way, with the added bonus that he was looking for a Bull Terrier to do agility, I made the heart breaking decision to place her.  

 Nora returned here to  live with me again only five months after I sold her and she brought her owner - that nice guy, Mark Lindquist - back with her.  Mark and I got married and now we're breeding Bull Terriers together, so there you go.   

Mark may not get sexy billing in this enterprise, but he’s IT, logistics, fulfillment, and customer service and had a hand in every editing and creative decision.  I never would have or could have made Puppy Culture without him.  So if you enjoyed watching Puppy Culture, you can thank Augie for passing his bad bite on to Nora.

This blog has been about our dogs, but really this story is every dedicated breeder’s story.  Any long time breeder who looks at a five generation pedigree sees not just names, but dogs, stories, people.  Overflowing memories of places and events, happy and sad times, people and dogs loved – some of them lost, some still with us, and some of them yet to come –  and the shiny threads of serendipity that hold them all together.  

So when I look at this litter of tiny babies in the whelping box, I can’t help but wonder what mountains these butterflies will someday move, and I’m in awe at how unknowable and wonderful the possibilities are.