Factors influencing ease of whelping and its relationship with maternal behaviour and puppy perinatal mortality in commercially bred dogs.

ABSTRACT: For dog breeders, parturition is a critical stage in the reproductive cycle of the dam. Evidence in other mammals suggests that a difficult labour can influence maternal behaviour and offspring viability during the first hours postpartum. However, the effect of whelping difficulty on the onset of maternal behaviour has not yet been investigated in domestic dogs. Here we developed an ease of whelping (EoW) index in dams maintained within a Commercial dog Breeding Establishment (CBE) environment and investigated the relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic factors (breed group according to size/weight, litter size, parity, whelping season and origin of the dam), EoW, early maternal behaviour and puppy perinatal mortality. The behaviour of 30 dams was observed throughout the whelping proc

SUBMITTER: Baqueiro-Espinosa U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9035175 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature