Near Disaster

     We haven't had the chance to post lately because we had a near disaster with several of the dogs. Eight days ago, we woke up to find Emme licking one of the puppies repeatedly. Looking into it further, we found his body was rather cold and he was rather listless. It appeared that he had a small injury on one of his shoulders.

I rushed him to the vet to see what was wrong. It turns out this injury broke the skin and had gotten infected. The puppy was severely dehydrated, had lost 20% of his birth weight, and had a very low body temperature. It was going to be touch-and-go whether he would survive the day.

Back at home, we kept him on the heating pad and fed him Pet-lak by eyedropper, as he was too weak to nurse. We had to get up every two hours during the night to make sure he got the care and feeding he needed, including an oral anti-biotic. By the next morning, he had perked up, and it looked like he would make it. It has taken a week to get back to his original birth weight.

Checking the other puppies, we found three others that had severe skin abrasions. What caused them? We had bought small, color-coded Velcro collars to keep track of each dog for weighing purposes, which you can see in some of the pictures. As it turns out, the collars were rather stiff and had an abrasive edge on them, which chaffed against the tender skin of the puppies. Needless to say, we took them right off. After a week, the abrasions still have not healed completely, the hair has not grown back.

                                         The offending collar. Notice the "teeth" on the edge

     In other news, the word is getting around about the puppies, and we are having visitors almost every day. Most say they have never seen puppies so small, and they all get a kick out of holding them. The younger visitors were especially enthralled. One of the puppies barked yesterday, a first. They seem like they are on the verge of walking.