The Bullmastiff is a giant dog, and the female bitch can weigh up to 60-70 kgs during pregnancy. My experience has been that with a large litter a pup is generally born between 200g and 400grams, however a small litter means puppies can generally weigh up to 700grams. This is a big difference in the scheme of puppy development and feeding regime.

My Bonnie weighed in at 64.6 kgs at full pregnancy therefore managing 12 puppies in a whelping pen is a lot of work. It requires a backup team to assist her to manage these little ones and that team consisted of Bonnie, myself, and Graeme.

21st February 2023 was a really hot day in Wagga Wagga and extremely muggy meaning that the evaporative cooling was ineffective. Bonnie was rushed in for an emergency c-section late evening due to a green discharge from her vulva which potentially meant that one or more puppies were in trouble.

We got the call about midnight that we had 13 puppies, 7 boys and 6 girls which was fantastic news however one didn’t make it.

When she came home from the c-section she was still groggy and not capable of much, even picking herself up was hard to watch and then waking up to 12 screaming babies was not what poor Bonnie was expecting.

Born early, Bonnie’s milk didn’t drop, meant we had to improvise. As inexperienced bottle feeders, a steep learning curve was upon us and if we didn’t get if right, we were looking at losing 12 puppies. We had to understand how these teats worked because as we learnt if the hole was not the right size, they were sucking nothing and if too big I was potentially drowning them.

ARRGGHHHH!!! Who would have thought it would be challenging to feed twelve puppies from a bottle. So, after we got the combination right and Bonnie’s milk came in, we were swapping from bottle to teat constantly. Finally, the puppies were thriving, whew I could relax, so I thought.

Now, Bonnie was not a natural at motherhood. She was clumsy and I constantly feared she would step on or squash her babies. So, to get some sleep we set the alarm on a 2-3 hourly roster, feed the puppies during this night on mum’s teats, took them away from her and commenced supplementing with the bottle throughout the day. It worked!!

As they got older Bonnie was doing everything right in relation to cleaning them up, however, I always had to watch her and after loosing another three boys over a two-week period, one which she asphyxiated at two weeks old, I was very mindful of not leaving her with them unattended.

The puppies adapted and while I did most of the cleaning and bottle feeding during each feed we got into a rhythm. At three weeks the puppies were ready for food and loving it. Feeding time became more about solids and at four weeks they were lapping milk and water.

Having a large litter requires a lot of work, resilience, patience, and love and even though Bonnie was not a natural mum it didn’t mean I loved her any less. I just needed to adjust my expectations and pick up the slack.

Until next time… Karen out for now…