Our Collie gave birth to it's first litter of six this week, and the missus was very pleased, pictures were sent and lots of cooing and mooning occured over the aborable little bundles.

However, about 4 hours later the wife left mother and pups (feeding happily) to gather a few things, when she and my daughter came back 25mins later, the scene was horrific at best, Mum had eaten two of the pups completely, chewed the back legs off another and half of the head of one more. The two remaining live pups had some small puncture wounds and were OK for a while, but after a while both just faded away and died, probably delayed shock.

I rushed back to help as best I could, but after clearing up the mess (so much blood!) and trying to help the last two there was very little to be done. But I can't get my head around why it happened, I know that even "domestic" dogs are still wild animals to a degree, but what purpose did that serve? I know that humans occasionally dump newborns in post-natal depression/shock, but euugghh.

Probably more scaring than sharing, but I can't stop thinking about it.

TR

christ mate that sounds awful. no advice to add i'm afraid but i imagine that would be horrible to deal with.
flippin heck.

I believe that, in the wild, that can happen if there is a shortage of food. The mother decides (instinctively) that the best chance for her genes to survive is to eat the offspring and await a time when there is more food and the young will grow up healthy.

Holy crap……wasn't expecting that!!

I just looked it up on google & it seems to be quite common. Not sure anyone knows why, but suggestions are that the dog is stressed or that it senses something is wrong with the puppies.

Must have been quite disturbing?

I've only been party to this
Its never happened to my dog, but still i think its one of the most harrowing sights ive seen.

I believe its the mother thinking she can't care for them, or she thinks they are to ill to survive.

Its not an issue you could have done anything about. In fact the dog was probably thinking about you.

Bad times,but its not your fault.

The problem is getting this across to the children.

flippin eck,that's extreme to say the least!!! 😯

I just went into auto-pilot and did what I could, but It's upset me ever since just thinking about it, God knows what our daughter must be thinking!

The wife is having some problems with the dog now too, she's not exactly flavour of the month!

The dog probably needs supporting now, not to be 'in the dog house' so to speak.

When I was a kid, a friend's greyhound had a litter. I remember that none of the kids were allowed to go in the room or make too much noise near the mother until the puppies were a couple of weeks old, because we were told that if the mother gets disturbed too soon after birth, or if the pups ended up with a human scent on them, she might eat them! No idea how true that is though.

Did read this though:

"Some bitches have even been known to eat their young out of fear and panic, any bitch that resorts to this behavior should never be bred again ( even if it is a top prize winner ) as this tendency can be passed on to the young. "

Could be that she's inherited the compulsion?

Last comment is very true.

I had a beautiful rottie called Sophie many moons ago; very friendly, gentle, but she destroyed her litter over a 48 hour period, despite us leaving the mother and pups alone.

You shouldn't let her breed again. But also remember that she is your dog too, and doesn't understand that what she has done is unacceptable.

Pretty normal dog behaviour.

Obviously she was not happy about something (and don't blame yourself – it could just have been because she was freaked over having pups) and this is something dogs (and most other mammals) sometimes do.

Don't try to put human values on the dog, she will always behave like the wolf she actually is under the thin veneer of domestication.

All sensible conclusions posted there guys.

quite common in the natural world for this to happen, harsh when it's a pet, your fortunate to not have to explain it to kids…

Bad times but sometimes nature isn't all fluffy and cute.