I have been breeding for 15 years and now have my first litter of two puppies and both are very fat swimmers. I'm following advice posted on here in the past, but I have an additional question. I had planned to keep one of these puppies, and I am wondering if this is genetic and maybe I shouldn't plan to keep one. If anyone with previous experience with this knows, please advise. Thanks!
I do not think it is genetic. Typically it is pups that are too fat--small litter or too much milk.
Limit time witth mom. Get a non-slip surface under the pups. If they already have flat chests and legs going straight out to the sides, then you will have to hobble them. Hobbling may seem cruel but it works very quickly--just a few days--to round out the ribs and get the legs back under the pup.
I do not think it is genetic. Typically it is pups that are too fat--small litter or too much milk.
Limit time witth mom. Get a non-slip surface under the pups. If they already have flat chests and legs going straight out to the sides, then you will have to hobble them. Hobbling may seem cruel but it works very quickly--just a few days--to round out the ribs and get the legs back under the pup.
MWK
Agree AND turn them on their sides whenever they are sleeping to form the chest correctly (hold gently on their side until the settle to sleep again). I had some from a great grandmother of my current 3 day old puppies, neither their grandmother or mother ever produced swimmers. I found they actually like hobbling with painter's tape because they can get around so much better.
I had several swimmer puppies, but have not had one for years. And I bred my swimmers, so my thinking is you don't have to worry about it.
Put all your puppies on the scale. Is the swimmer the fattest pup? Bet it is not. Mine weren't. They just look that way because they are on their stomachs. Mine were never the fattest puppies.
Puppies normally lie on their sides. What causes swimming is a puppy's preference to lie on its stomach. After I had a a couple of swimmers, I learned to look for this tendency the very first week and started to work on it right away.
In my last litter I had one. I had previously had a small litter and there were 2 in it. I had read about doing physical therapy using massage on the puppy. You hold it on its stomach on your lap and gently massage starting at the withers slowly rub in a downward motion down the front legs so that the legs start pointing straight down instead of out to the side. It doesn't take long before the puppy is much looser in the joints and relaxed. You also hold the front legs gently together while massaging the shoulders. Spend some time rubbing from the back down the ribs to help shape the rib cage to a normal round shape instead of flat. It really took only a week of gentle massage to get this little one more relaxed, sleeping on her side, sitting up. We used bathmats upside down, but they have to be a loose weave type not slick. We also helped her by placing her back legs under her body to take steps. Once she figured out she could get around she really took off. She is a gorgeous puppy now, great keel and angles. You would never know she ever had a problem. I have found that this method was easier then what I went through with the pups in the older litter. None of the puppies ended up with any sign of an issue due to being flat in the ribs.
I've had a couple of smaller litters with fat puppies that looked like they wanted to trend toward swimmers. I'll put egg crate foam mattress pads under the whelping fleece to make for a soft but irregular turf for them to manuever on. I had one little fella that I would lay on my lap, on his side, and just massage his rib cage from his back toward his belly for a while in the evenings much like one of other posters has described. He was slower to walk at first but it didn't take long before he was up and about with the rest of the litter.
