Chihuahua Pups

This afternoon we got a call from Michelle McKnight, the Shelter Manager at the Champaign County Humane Society. They had a litter of 5, 6-day old Chihuahuas. She wanted to know if we would take them.

“Is their mom with them?” I asked. Michelle told me they didn’t have the mom. She had died sometime during the night on Tuesday. The owners tried to bottle feed the pups, but they were overwhelmed. “One of us will be over to get them.” I told her, and soon Harriett was on her way to CCHS to pick them up.

Orphan pups are a very difficult foster job. The importance of the work done by the mom cannot be overstated. For the first ten days the pups have to be fed every 2 to 3 hours around the clock. The food intake has to be monitored very carefully to be sure they are getting enough food. Every time they eat, each puppy has to be manually stimulated to eliminate urine and feces—they won’t be able to do that on their own for a couple of weeks. Mom does all that and keeps them warm. We’ll have to take over all of these duties.

Harriett and I manage orphans by doing the daytime feeding every two hours or so. We usually go to three hours between feedings during the night and we take turns getting up on alternate nights. That means we each get a full nights sleep every other day. We’ll keep this up until the pups are 10 days old, then we can drop to 4 hours feedings. Depending on how the pups are doing, we can stop the nighttime feedings when they’re 2 1/2 to 3 weeks old.

The pups are a bit dehydrated so we’re having inject fluids under their skin a few times each day. This is very common with orphan pups. The next few days are critical for their survival.

	Puppy #1 female
	Puppy #2 male
	Puppy #3 male
	Puppy #4 female
	Puppy #5 male