Stewie’s Crashing

Everything was going well with the pups today. They had all eaten the required amount of food for their first three feedings and were acting like normal, two-week-old puppies. But when Harriett went down to do the 4:00 pm feeding she noticed a serious problem with Stewie. He was having trouble breathing and was very lethargic. A rapid decline like this is called crashing and is always a critical situation. I immediately called the shelter and talked to Jessica, the Medical Director. She told me to bring Stewie right over.

Jessica met me in the parking lot and I gave her a quick review of Stewie’s day. I told her I was worried about aspiration pneumonia, a common problem with bottle-fed newborns. Another factor to consider is that we don’t know why Stewie’s mother died, and we’ve had him for roughly the amount of time it takes for some nasty diseases to incubate. Jessica took Stewie to the surgery suite and put him on oxygen. After checking him over she administered subcutaneous fluids and a gave him Nutri-Cal to boost his blood sugar level.

The medical staff was going to be at the Shelter for a couple more hours, so the plan we agreed to was for me to leave Stewie with Jessica and she would keep him on oxygen until they closed up the surgery. Jessica volunteered to take him home with her so she could keep an eye on him over night.

We don’t know how this will turn out. Pneumonias can be fatal for such small pups. If that’s what it is, all we can do is provide medical support and wait to see if he’s strong enough to pull through. We’ll be checking on him tomorrow morning and I’ll post another update when I get some news.