mom and puppies weaning

Question
I have a litter of 5 puppies. They are about 4 weeks old, about two days ago the mom starting growling and snaring at them when they try to eat. She has also being laying were they cant get her. I am fostering her for the pound and she needs to go back really soon. I have they canned milk from the store. How do I wean them? should I use the milk? How can I do it quickly but healthy?

Answer
Hi Chelsea,

This is within the normal time frame of when a mother dog will begin to wean her puppies.

At this point, it is time to start offering food for the puppies to sample. Also,  at this point, increased gentle human handling can improve the puppy's physical and social development, and make them more accepting of people.

Start offering food (canned, semi-moist or even dry puppy food moistened with water) to the puppies. As an alternative, you could also create a gruel consisting of some puppy milk replacement like Esbilac, some human baby food meat (chicken, lamb, turkey, beef) and a high grade puppy kibble.

Offer the puppies small amounts of soft food in a shallow dish. Up to this point, the puppies have been suckling to get their nourishment. Now, they need to learn to open their mouths and bite to get food into their mouths to be swallowed. Learning to do this results in some messy feeding times. Puppies will typically walk and fall in the food dish. They may even try to nurse on the food, resulting in some pretty messy pups. Eventually, they learn normal eating behavior. Some people will place the food on a cookie sheet and place it in the bathtub and let the puppies learn. This allows for easy clean up.

It's going to become necessary to contain the puppies, as they will be more mobile now. If you have a child's plastic swimming pool, that would be a great way of containing the pups during mealtime, and limiting the mess to one easy to clean area.

Offer the food several times a day for about 30 minutes at a time. When the puppies no longer seem interested in the food, clean them up and put them back with their mother. During this time, allow the mother increasing time away from the babies. For some mothers, you may have to be persistent. Some mothers and some babies may not wean properly. Mothers that do not begin to push away their puppies by 4 weeks of age will need help. Weaning should progress slowly, to reduce the incidence of anxiety and mammary gland inflammation in the mother.
Several times a day, remove the babies for 1 to 2 hours at a time. Food should only be offered for short periods of time but keeping the babies separate from the mother can encourage natural weaning. As the puppies age, more time should be spent away from the mother until finally, the puppies are on their own.

By the time the puppies are around 8 weeks of age, they should be eating solid food and no longer nursing. At this tender age, pups are ready for their new homes and life without their mother.

You can read more about weaning puppies here:

http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=2&cat=1651&articleid=887

Best of luck!
Patti