Tails, Dew Claws and Fenugreek

Boxers are docked at one to three days of age, and their dew claws are removed at the same time.  This post discusses the process - if you are squeamish or have leanings toward animal rights, stop reading now...you're not going to like what's coming next!  :)

Monday was tail and dew claw day...for my past litters, my partner in crime, Tamara, would come up and the two of us would do the evil deed.  We had a great system...in ten years of docking and doing dew claws, we only had one puppy that got an infection in their tail.  Pretty good odds.  After having their "extra bits" removed, puppies went right back on a nipple and never once gave those bits a second thought...

This time around, however, Tamara was unable to come up to help, so I had to come up with another option.  I had multiple friends who had banded their puppies' tails with good success so I thought I'd give it a try.  I just couldn't imagine trying to teach someone else our old system!  Too many steps!

Let me just say that banding is infinitely easier than cutting/gluing but the experience of having to learn a whole new process was totally nerve wracking!  The same can be said of dew claw removal as I used a new tool to do that as well...I've never done dew claws before (ever) so I was weirded out to begin with.  Don't ask my why removing little bitty dew claws is worse than docking tails, but it is.

I also started Lily on a herb called "fenugreek"...it is HIGHLY effective for bringing milk down in mammals - it is frequently used by human mothers who would like to breast feed but don't have enough milk naturally.  One of the side effects of fenugreek is that once the bitch has had the correct dosage (for her), she begins to smell like maple syrup.  Yup, you read that right, maple syrup...

So because Lily smells like maple syrup, so does her milk and so do the puppies.  I couldn't figure out where the lovely smell was coming from - my hands smelled like maple syrup after playing with the babies.  It's very cool!!

Anyway, I'm off to bed...5am comes damn early!