[Maren Bell Jones]

Having no research experience with dogs, but having 4 years of research experience with mice (like they cite in the article), it is indeed true with mice. However, mice are a bit more high strung than rats and even a change in temperature can make the moms go nuts and scatter their pups, kill them, start spinning, not nurse, etc, so when we do experiments like one I'm currently working on, we have to be very careful how we handle the pups. Before we touch them, we take the mom out of the cage, put her in a different, handle the pups as needed, and then put them back exactly where they were before we put the mom back in the cage. I'm not a breeder, but I would probably put the momma dog in another room before doing this. Not sure if it says to do that or not. Other than that, sounds like an interesting protocol.