I have a friend in another breed who had a two year old maiden bitch whelp a litter of 9. She was a great and attentive mother for the first two weeks.

At 2 weeks she went after one pup, got a glazed sort of look in her eyes, and the pup suffered a puncture wound. The puppy was removed from the litter, and bottle fed.

The bitch was fine with the other puppies they were allowed to nurse as ofter as they wanted, the bitch in with them, and then at three weeks got the same dazed and distorted look in her eyes, and took after another puppy, also male, and this time, he wasn't so lucky. Prior to the 'attack' the puppy was restless, whining and mom's attention seemed to make it worse. He'd whine, she'd clean him, and he would continue to whine.

After this second incident, mom was removed from the litter, at three weeks old. She went through a rough few nights and is now happy within the house and with their other dogs, but my friend has not allowed mom back in with the puppies at all.

Calcium levels were run, and they were inconclusive, as it should have apparently been an ionized calcium test. Pre breeding thyroid was normal. No autopsy on the puppy was done. This is a bitch that has never shown any aggression toward man or dog in the past, and isn't now with her kennel mates either.

Does this sound like a bitch with poor mothering skills or something completely different? Like what? Any opinions as to what went wrong?

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Replying to:

I have a friend in another breed who had a two year old maiden bitch whelp a litter of 9. She was a great and attentive mother for the first two weeks.

At 2 weeks she went after one pup, got a glazed sort of look in her eyes, and the pup suffered a puncture wound. The puppy was removed from the litter, and bottle fed.

The bitch was fine with the other puppies they were allowed to nurse as ofter as they wanted, the bitch in with them, and then at three weeks got the same dazed and distorted look in her eyes, and took after another puppy, also male, and this time, he wasn't so lucky. Prior to the 'attack' the puppy was restless, whining and mom's attention seemed to make it worse. He'd whine, she'd clean him, and he would continue to whine.

After this second incident, mom was removed from the litter, at three weeks old. She went through a rough few nights and is now happy within the house and with their other dogs, but my friend has not allowed mom back in with the puppies at all.

Calcium levels were run, and they were inconclusive, as it should have apparently been an ionized calcium test. Pre breeding thyroid was normal. No autopsy on the puppy was done. This is a bitch that has never shown any aggression toward man or dog in the past, and isn't now with her kennel mates either.

Does this sound like a bitch with poor mothering skills or something completely different? Like what? Any opinions as to what went wrong?

When you say glazed look in her eyes, could she be having a mild seizure? Dogs are out of sorts and aggressive when coming out of seizures and breeding/whelping/lactating can put enough stress on the system to trigger them. It sounds too sporatic to be a bad mothering issue, it sounded like something was a trigger.

Is the breed a spanial? I know they can suffer from Rage (not sure what the offical name is). It crops up in Springers and cockers, maybe other breeds too. I've heard them described as getting a glazed look before they turn on the nearest thing. Good luck.

Also check blood sugar levels. My dad had a Lab who was the best dog ever, we grew up with him. At 9 or 10, he started having spells which started that way, with the glazed look, followed by a brief period of visciousness. Went on later to have convulsions, again followed by a period of visciousness. I remember we had to barricade ourselves from him one evening until it passed, as he would have torn our heads off. The fact I had my new Lab puppy in with us didn't seem to help, but this dog had "raised and trained" numerous pups for field work, so a pup around was nothing new to him. When it passed, he was lying at the door, we said his name, and heard the thumping of his tail and when we opened the door, he had the most confused look on his face, as if to ask why our family had rejected him. Turned out he had a cancerous growth on his pancreas which was causing havock with his blood sugar and other systems. Despite costly surgery to remove the growth, it had spread and we lost him.

I agree about the spaniel rage and also, if there was anything wrong with those pups, (and the second one sounded questionable,) it could have been stressing mom out. And nature is a funny thing. I know of a cat who reared her kittens up just fine for 4 weeks, then killed and ate every one of them.