just lost litter of seven

Question
hello kirstin my 3 year old gsd just had a litter of seven and i have lost all of them except for one. up to now she has been a great mother with past litters but for some reason she doesnt seem interested in her pups allowing them to die one by one. i kept her in my garage using a kiddie pool lined with newspaper to keep them out of the cold weather and to keep a closer eye but it didnt help. can you tell what may have happened. right now i dont trust her with the last puppy because i went to check on her and the pup was laying beside motionless

Answer
Some dogs,like some people are poor mothers-for a number of reasons,some dogs it might be because they don't produce enough milk,and other dogs might lack interest,or some don't even know what to do with the puppies

She may be distracted by changes-that often happens if the environment the new dog is in

In some cases dogs can even become jealous of the puppies,so spending a lot of one on one time with her may help

It could also be a hormonal problem,like people dogs can suffer from the 'baby blues' and in rare cases it may even cause the dog to want to kill he own puppies,because her hormones will often make a dog become aggressive for no reason at all

So there's a wide variety of reasons for a dog to lose interest in a litter-it can be hard,but it does help if you can narrow things down a bit,such as asking yourself some questions like:Has anything been changed in her environment(changing where she lives ect) Was it a sudden,or gradual lack of interest? If it's gradual,it may mean she is feeling left out of everything,if it's sudden it may be hormonal,Does she seem to be acting differently,which could also mean it's a hormonal thing,does she seem bored with the puppies? Which could mean she didn't 'connect' with them,Does she have a problem feeding them? If she isn't producing enough milk for the puppies it may become uncomfortable to feed the puppies and even painful so she may want to avoid them for that reason as well