Mastitis and litter milk production

Question
Hi
I have a Black Lab, Roxie she was 2 when breed.  This is her 1st litter, she has 10 healthy puppies.  Long story short great she is a great Mom to much milk she was an Inconsistent nurser started weaning it went bad quickly. Mastitis, brought her in and medicated at home additional compress.  Ruptured at vet for 3 days milk still not drying up and infection now cause breast to almost come off.  Needles to say we are going to fix her bit i am concerned for the development of the pups.  Can she ever be near them again?  Being in the house with out being near them caused the milk not to dry up thats why we are keeping her at the vet for at least 4 days and we can't visit because we smell like the pups. ijust want my dog to live but also concerned for the development of pups.  They all seem happy are eating well.  They will be 4 weeks in 2 days. we hold them 3x a day at least i have 3 girls 7,9,11 and they love on them with gentle touches constantly. So in total care of pups development, dealing with mom when released, how?  Should I keep one and do this again? Until this it was a perfect experience. I would only do it again if the vet certified her and said it was a go as well as her temperament and all that.

Answer
Hi Mary. It sounds like you guys have had quite the hard time. As for keeping a puppy to do this again, that is your decision. However, you have to know that this could very well happen again to your puppy if bred. Or worse, you can lose  the mom. These are the hard decisions to make when you want to breed. :-) Bad things can, and do happen. Right now, mom is still alive, and pups are healthy. This is close to perfect.:-)

Wait and see how mom feels when she gets home. She may need a few more days, or a week to get back to feeling somewhat normal. You can ask your vet about something to help dry her milk up. After she gets home, and has had plenty of time to heal, you can try to reintroduce them slowly, maybe just one or two pups to see how she reacts. You may have to keep them a part until her milk completely dries up. You can do some things to help socialize the pups. Keep a radio playing softly in the puppy room. Get them use to being handled, and use to normal household noises. There's a good link for a web page that tells you what puppies are suppose to be exposed to. I'm going to include that at the bottom of this page. Good luck, and if I can help with anything else, let me know.

http://petcaretips.net/stages-puppy-development.html

http://www.breedingbetterdogs.com/achiever.html