It is the experience of many observers that the first whelps born in a litter are the strongest, largest, and healthiest.  If the litter is a large one, the last born may be noticeably puny, and this disparity in size may continue to maturity.  The wise breeder will decide for himself how many whelps should be left to the care of their dam.  The number should be relative to her health and constitution, and in any case it is well not to give her so many that they will be a drain upon her.  Those breeds of dogs that have been most highly developed by man and that appear to have the greatest amount of brain and intelligence are generally the most prolific as to the number of puppies they produce.  St. Bernards, Pointers, Setters are notable for the usual strength of their families.  St. Bernards have been known to produce as many as eighteen whelps at a birth, and it is no uncommon thing for them to produce from nine to twelve.  A Pointer of Mr. Barclay Field’s produced fifteen, and it is well known that Mr. Statter’s Setter Phoebe produced twenty-one at a birth.  Phoebe reared ten of these herself, and almost every one of the family became celebrated.  It would be straining the natural possibilities of any bitch to expect her to bring up eighteen puppies healthily.  Half that number would tax her natural resources to the extreme.  But Nature is extraordinarily adaptive in tempering the wind to the shorn lamb, and a dam who gives birth to a numerous litter ought not to have her family unduly reduced.  It was good policy to allow Phoebe to have the rearing of as many as ten out of her twenty-one.  A bitch having twelve will bring up nine very well, one having nine will rear seven without help, and a bitch having seven will bring up five better than four.

Breeders of Toy-dogs often rear the overplus offspring by hand, with the help of a Maw and Thompson feeding-bottle, peptonised milk, and one or more of the various advertised infants’ foods or orphan puppy foods.  Others prefer to engage or prepare in advance a foster-mother.  The foster-mother need not be of the same breed, but she should be approximately of similar size, and her own family ought to be of the same age as the one of which she is to take additional charge.  One can usually be secured through advertisement in the canine press.  Some owners do not object to taking one from a dogs’ home, which is an easy method, in consideration of the circumstance that by far the larger number of “lost” dogs are bitches sent adrift because they are in whelp.  The chief risk in this course is that the unknown foster-mother may be diseased or verminous or have contracted the seeds of distemper, or her milk may be populated with embryo worms.  These are dangers to guard against.  A cat makes an excellent foster-mother for Toy-dog puppies.