She bites the puppies on the nose

Hello, Some dogs are not cut out to be moms and will bite their puppies. If she continues to do this, it would be best to bottle feed these puppies until they can eat solid food. So sorry to hear that your mommy dog is being aggressive.

My dog's small litter (3) will be 5 weeks in 2 days. Just recently, I saw the mother appear to be playing with one of the puppies by lightly using her teeth, but then she began to roll on the puppy. When I pushed her off, she had the puppy's face in her mouth, lightly biting but once or twice I could hear the pup whine. I picked the puppy up and then petted the mom. When I put the puppy back down, the mom went back to using her teeth and rolling over on the pup. I finally picked up the pup because what initially looked like playfulness started to make me uncomfortable. What could be the problem? The dogs aren't sick. She's slowly weaning the 3 of them and doesn't treat the others the same. Honestly she want treating any of them badly until that one time. It just makes me nervous. Could that have been a one time moment of frustration? Or does she intend to do some harm? No mastitis either.

It certainly sounds like the mom was trying to intentionally harm the pup which may be caused by a few different reasons which may include lack of recognition (she may not see the pup as her own), stress, illness or other causes; if this occurs again you should separate the pup and hand wean it over to solids. Regards Dr Callum Turner DVM

My female had a litter of puppies last night and theres one small one. She can nurse fine and everything but earlier i walked in and seen the mom puttimg the runts head in her mouth as if she was fixing to eat it?! What should i do

If the mother is looking to harm the little one you should separate them and keep the pup warm, you could try to place him on a teat every so often but it may be a good idea to hand feed. If she tried to harm him once, she probably would try again. Regards Dr Callum Turner DVM