Basic Whelping Kit

The items on this list may not be all you will ever need when delivering a litter of puppies; but if your dog is expecting its first litter, these are items you may want to have in one location. You really don’t want to scurry all over the house hysterically searching for an item when you need to remain cool, calm and collected.

• Two pairs of hemostats
• Dull, round tipped scissors
• Rectal thermometer (or a good digital thermometer designated for the dogs)
• Thermometer cover sleeves
• Alcohol (for disinfecting, not drinking)
• Latex gloves (if you are squeamish about body fluids)
• A watch or clock for timing contractions
• A nasal aspirator
• Clean, dry cloths (wash cloth and hand towel size is perfect)
  **The small cloths are used for pulling a puppy, if needed. The medium sized cloths are used for drying puppies.
• Clean bedding
• Whelping box
• A couple of zip loc bags (small size for small dogs, large for large dogs)
  **I have never fed my dogs their placentas. I always place them in a zip loc bag and save until the actual whelping is finished, just in case we have to make a trip to the vet and the vet wants to inspect the placentas for abnormalities.
• Iodine for naval cords
• Kwik stop to halt naval cord bleeding