Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Dog Pen For Puppies

Well, this weekend was time to prepare for the birth of the puppies, as Bailey’s due next weekend.  Shih tzu puppies don’t grow too big by the time they’re ready to leave for their new homes at the age of eight weeks old, so here’s how I build our puppy pen (with the help of my dad, naturally)

A standard litter size for a shih tzu is 3 to 5 puppies, although they can have more. This is Bailey’s third litter and the last two have been five and seven puppies respectively, so I’m hoping she’ll have six to eight pups this time.

I’ve made the pen 1 metre by 1 and a half metres.  The wood is ten inches high.  I bought a cheap piece of carpet from the local market, which cost £10. That’s to make sure nothing goes through onto my back room carpet.  I haven’t put paper down yet but I’ve been saving newspapers for months and have people at work saving me their daily papers too, because the puppies will go through lots of them.

The most important thing for the litter is to make sure they’re warm enough, so the pen is placed next to the radiator and when they’re born I’ll put a small portable heater at the other end of the pen.

When a bitch gives birth, she’ll want to do it where she’s comfortable so if you don’t want her to give birth where she normally sleeps, then it’s best to introduce her to the new bed/pen/area about a week before so she gets used to sleeping there.  That’s no problem for Bailey because she loves the new soft carpet.  I’ve moved her cage into the pen so she’ll sleep there for the next week.