My 4 week old puppy was orphaned at birth when my dog died and I have been putting hot water bottles and a heating pad in her box with her to keep her warm, this past day she has been trying to get out of her box and panting as though she is too warm, how long do you have to provide constant heat for a puppy and how warm does it have to be?

The best thing you can buy when having a litter of pups is a heat lamp with a built in thermostat!

It is a red light that you hang above the whelping box, they usually have a temperature setting but you can pick up old second hand ones that do not, you will just need to grab a thermometre and use it to figure out how far away from the box the light needs to be.

Hot water bottles are a bad idea as you cannot regulate the temperature.
Does your heat pad have temperature settings?
I have seen puppies literally cooked to death by these methods but if you are VERY careful they should be fine.

Box should be kept at 80-85F, put the heat light at one end so the puppy can move to the cooler side if it is hot or the warmer side if it is cold.

The best thing you can buy when having a litter of pups is a heat lamp with a built in thermostat!!

It is a red light that you hang above the whelping box, they usually have a temperature setting but you can pick up old second hand ones that do not, you will just need to grab a thermometre and use it to figure out how far away from the box the light needs to be.

Hot water bottles are a bad idea as you cannot regulate the temperature.
Does your heat pad have temperature settings?
I have seen puppies literally cooked to death by these methods but if you are VERY careful they should be fine.

Box should be kept at 80-85F, put the heat light at one end so the puppy can move to the cooler side if it is hot or the warmer side if it is cold.


The heating pad does have heat settings on it and as she got older I made it a little less and less warm, but the hot water bottles are on top of the heating pad to keep them at the same temp. at all times. What I'm really wondering is how old the puppy needs to be to be able to have no heating pad or bottles. Today she was panting like a dog in the hot sun but it wasn't exceptionally warm in her box.

At 4 weeks she should be pretty OK with not having any heating as long as the weather is not to cold.

Maybe on cold nights you can still use the heating pad but during the day she should be fine.