A healthy newborn Bernese is big, black, and already marked like the breed
A healthy newborn Bernese Mountain Dog makes an impression first through sheer substance. He is one of the heavier newborn puppies of any breed, with thick leg bones, broad paws, and a body that fills two hands. His markings arrive with him: a jet-black ground coat, rust colouring over the eyes, on the cheeks, chest sides, and legs, and clear white on the chest, the paws, the tail tip, and often a blaze running up between the eyes. The pattern varies puppy to puppy, which is exactly what lets you tell littermates apart. His coat is noticeably thicker and longer than a short-coated breed's at the same age, feeling plush and dense, and his skin underneath is pink and clean.
Sealed eyes and a broad head on a puppy built for strength
A healthy newborn Bernese Mountain Dog has the sealed eyes and folded ears of every newborn, set in a broad, slightly domed head with a strong, blunt muzzle. Nothing about him looks delicate. He crawls by paddling and pushing, and a healthy puppy of this breed crawls with genuine power, hauling his considerable weight across the whelping box to reach his mother and rooting firmly along her belly. When you lift him briefly he feels dense and warm, and he wriggles with strength rather than hanging slack. His umbilical stump should be drying and shrivelling cleanly. His breathing, even after the effort of a feed, should settle quickly to a quiet, even rhythm as he sleeps against his mother or in the puppy pile.
Nursing and sleep in a Bernese newborn follow a full-belly rhythm
A healthy newborn Bernese Mountain Dog nurses with commitment, latching deeply, kneading with those broad front paws, and staying on the teat until his belly is round and taut with milk. He then sleeps the way large-breed puppies do: heavily, sprawled or piled with littermates, legs twitching through dream sleep, hard to disturb and content. He wakes with a strong cry when he is hungry or has rolled away from the warmth, and the cry stops when he is fed or tucked back in. His mother stimulates him to urinate and pass soft, yellowish stool when she licks him, and his rear stays reasonably clean with her attention. Between feeds he should feel warm; a big puppy can still chill, so a puppy who feels cool and cries weakly needs warming and a check.
Daily gains in a Bernese litter should be large and unbroken
A healthy newborn Bernese Mountain Dog gains substantially each day, and because there is so much puppy to grow, a stalled day stands out on the record. Weigh each puppy daily at the same time, and use the markings you noted at birth to be certain which weight belongs to which puppy in a sea of black, rust, and white. Call your veterinarian promptly if a newborn Bernese loses weight, fails to gain over a full day, cannot hold a latch, cries without settling, or seems limp and cool. In a large litter, check that the puppies at the edges are getting full turns at the teats, since competition is real when many big puppies feed at once. KinsLe Pet Passport gathers his birth weight, his exact white blaze and rust pattern, and the notes from his first examination into one portable packet, ready for every vet visit this fast-growing dog will have.