Update

There haven’t been any litters of puppies for us to take for quite a while, so things have been very quiet around here. To fill the news gap we have two updates to pass along.

Molly

Many of you will remember Molly as Lisa from the Simpson’s litter we had in January. Last week we received a very nice update from Sarah, her new owner. Here’s what Sarah has to say about Molly.

First of all, and most importantly, she's finally potty-trained!! She will go and sit next to our front door until we let her out. She has had very few accidents in the past few weeks but we are SO proud of her!

She also graduated from puppy training class at PetSmart 2 weeks ago. In her class, there was Ned, Marge, and Homer. At the first class, they all recognized each other and played like crazy! The instructor had a hard time in the class because they only wanted to play. Haha! She's very very smart and learned all of her basic commands almost immediately! Her favorite is to shake!

Molly also now has two sisters, cats named Milo and Abby. Abby is her best friend. They play and chase each other and wrestle (all in good fun, of course!) Sometimes they even sleep together. Milo, however, is scared of Molly’s big paws and playful personality so she keeps her distance. Molly loves to climb up the back of our couch and into our big bay window to watch the neighbors outside and other dogs walking by.  She also has a favorite toy (name Pinkie) that she doesn't let out of her sight!

We will definitely keep you updated as she grows with pictures and stories! Thanks again for all you've done!

Sarah sent us a few pictures to show how Molly is growing. Beautiful as ever! We love hearing about our foster dogs and seeing them in their new homes.

Chihuahua Birthday Reunion

The Chihuahua pups we had in foster care last June are planning a reunion for their first birthday party. All five puppies will be here. The party will be held on June 11 after Max returns from his winter residence in Arizona.

Alice, Peter, and Ralph Have a Play Date

Alice, Peter, and Ralph Have a Play Date from Tom Schaefges on Vimeo.

Last night on PuppyCam I mentioned that I would have a surprise video posted here by Thursday. Here it is. Three of the Chihuahua pups having a play date.

Alice and Ralph were adopted by Harriett’s nephew and his family. Peter belongs to a friend of ours. Alice and Ralph are staying here for a couple of days while their family is on vacation, so Harriett thought it would be fun to set up a play date with Peter. The video starts our near the pool. Harriett set up a small wading pool with the hopes that the Chihuahuas would be interested in swimming. Alas, Chihuahuas aren’t water dogs and none of them, were interested in swimming, but they ran around and wrestled.

After playing outside we moved downstairs, next to the puppy room. You’ll see that the pups had a wonderful time. It was interesting to see the three of them together again. We don’t often get to see our foster dogs after they leave.

Stewie Update

Stewie may be little, but he has a mighty big heart. His new owners have given him a big name…Maximilian. Here’s the note we received from his new “mom,” Helen, late last night:

What a good send off Stewie, aka Max had. Everyone had their kisses and when he arrived home he investigated his new home and loved the grass outside. After all this, he did his duties and came in, entered his equipped crate, blankets and toys, took a short nap and continued to investigate. We were invited out to dinner, he went along and was a big hit. He now is sitting by me in my chair while I write this. He has already figured out what it means to ask for a kiss and he welcomes ones he receives. We love him so much. Just more of good things to come.

And this morning we received another note:

We had a perfect night, no whining at all. He went into his little house where his bear is and slept well until 6:30 this morning. He didn't eat much breakfast and is laying by me cat napping while I tell everyone how he is doing. He has been whining some this morning. I think he misses his bro's and sisters. I will keep you up to date as we go along.

I’ll continue to pass along updates as we receive them.

Stewie Has Left The Building

We just got back from dropping Stewie off at the Champaign County Humane Society. He’ll have his “Go Home” physical and will be picked up by his adopters early this afternoon. Stewie had a little Chihuahua kiss for CCHS Shelter Manager Michelle McKnight.

Chihuahua Pups Are Going Home

We’ve come to the end of our time with the Chihuahua pups. Despite the health crisis during the early weeks, these orphan pups are strong and healthy. Harriett and I are grateful to CCHS Surgery Assistant Jessica for her quick work and improvisations to keep Stewie and the rest of the litter alive when they were crashing, and to CCHS Shelter Manager Michelle for taking care of Stewie when he was in so much danger. As I have often said, there are a lot of people involved in these special-needs cases and it’s due to their hard work and dedication that we’re successful.

Stewie is going home this afternoon and the other four pups will be going home tomorrow. Not only is this the smallest litter we have ever had, it’s unique in that we knew all but one of the adopters before we had the pups. We expect to have updates to post periodically. As a special bonus, the 12-year old son in the family that’s taking Alice and Ralph has created a blog to let everyone follow their progress. It’s called Chi Puppy Life and I’m looking forward to following the little guys through their puppyhood and training through his eyes.

Our next foster dog is already at the shelter waiting for a spot to open up. I’ll post her picture and story after she arrives.

Here’s a picture of each of the puppies. The one on the left was taken the day they arrived when they were six days old. The one on the right was taken earlier today.

Alice
5 ounces	2 pounds, 15 ounces
Ralph
5 ounces	2 pounds, 8 ounces
Peter
4 ounces	2 pounds, 2 ounces
Lois
4 ounces	2 pounds
Stewie
4 ounces	1 pound, 14 ounces

Spay Day

The Chihuahua pups went to the Shelter this morning for their spay and neuter surgeries. The girls, Alice and Lois were spayed, but Peter is the only one of the boys who could be neutered. Ralph and Stewie have undescended testicles and will have to grow up a little more before they can be neutered.

Harriett picked up the pups and they were back here early this afternoon. As is usual with pups of this age, you can’t tell by the way they are acting that they had major surgery this morning. We have them separated by gender to keep the playing to a minimum so they won’t tear open their incisions.

The adopters have scheduled their pick ups for Saturday, so the pups will stay with us until Saturday morning, then they’ll go back for their final medical check and then on to their new homes.

Wonderful Weekend for the Pups

Chihuahua Pups (l-r): Ralph, Peter, Stewie (front), Alice, Lois

The Chihuahua pups had a very busy weekend. On Saturday they had a visit from Nancy (aka Cyber Auntie Cindypup) and her husband, Gus. David, Janelle, Logan, and Sean, the family that has adopted Alice and Ralph, also stopped by.

A visit from Nancy and Gus wouldn’t be complete without a picture of the puppies in a basket. Nancy brought an extra small basket for this group.

And Sunday evening we had a visit from Patricia and Ronald, a couple that has applied to adopt Lois. Lois spent nearly their entire visit snuggled in Ronald’s arms. When Lois goes home with them she will have a big sister, a 4-year old, long-haired, black Chihuahua.

Peter and Stewie are available for adoption. You can apply to adopt a puppy by going to the Champaign County Humane Society in Urbana and talking to the adoption staff.

 

Chihuahua Update

The Chihuahua Pups (l-r): Alice, Ralph, Peter, Lois, Stewie.

The Chihuahua pups are six and a half weeks old and everyone’s healthy and doing great. Stewie, the smallest pup, finally made it over the one pound mark yesterday when he weighed in at 1 pound, 1 1/2 ounces. Alice, the largest pup, is very close to weighing two pounds. These are, by far, the smallest dogs we have ever had in foster care. We have to be very careful when walking or stepping anywhere near the pups so we don’t step on one of them. It’s not uncommon for small dogs like this to get broken legs from being stepped on, dropped, or even jumping off the couch. I can only imagine what we must look like from their point of view. Given our relative sizes, it would be like me looking up at a person who was as tall as a five storey building!

Despite their small size, these pups are developing just like every other litter we’ve ever had. They’ve settled into a normal routine for six week old pups with one exception. Normally puppies at this age are big enough that we give them the run of the puppy room. These guys, though, are so small that they can stay in the whelping box with plenty of room to spare. Since we haven’t been on PuppyCam for almost a week, we get them out at night for socialization. They had their first TV time a couple of days ago. Stewie, especially, enjoyed the experience.

Within the last week we’ve made a change to the feeding regimen. Rather then feeding each pup individually, we’re using as communal food bowl and letting the puppies eat in a group. We felt comfortable making this change because they were all eating well on their own, and steady weight gains indicated that everyone was healthy and getting enough food. We’ve also started leaving the water bowl in the whelping box. The pups are big enough and strong enough that we no longer worry about drowning.

Have a look at Lois’ picture at the top of this post. Within the last few days her ears have lifted and are now erect like the other pups. She’s pretty cute, isn’t she?

This weekend the pups will have some visitors. Cyber Auntie Cindypup and her husband, Mr. Cindypup (aka Gus), will be here on Saturday afternoon. They will be joined by David, Janelle, Logan, and Sean, the family that’s adopting Alice and Ralph. If our internet connection is stable enough (see below) I will try to have the visit on PuppyCam.

Alice and Ralph have been adopted. If you’re interested in adopting one of the other three go to the Champaign County Humane Society in Urbana and fill out an application.

PuppyCam

Our internet service provider is upgrading the equipment that’s on top of the grain elevator in downtown Sidney. Our connection has not been very fast or stable for some time and that has made it impossible to have PuppyCam. I’ve been told that they are having a problem getting the necessary parts. However, despite the difficulty, we’re going to try to have a PuppyCam broadcast on Thursday evening starting at about 7 pm (central time). If our connection holds out and the video streams properly, we’ll get back to a regular broadcast schedule.

Chihuahua Update

A lot has happened in the last week! The biggest news is that Megan and Brian have been adopted. They will be going to the same family and will have two boys (10 and 12 years old) to play with. The family has decided on Alice and Ralph as their adopted names so we have changed our records accordingly. The blue dots next to the pictures below indicate the puppies have been adopted.

All of the puppies are eating solid food and we have dropped down to four feedings per day. This is a big milestone for the pups and a welcome break for Harriett and I. The quantities are still very small. Alice gets 12 kibbles per feeding, Ralph gets 11, and Peter, Lois, and Stewie get 9 each. We’re soaking the kibbles in water until they are soft. The pups have teeth, but they are still coming in and the pups have very small mouths.

This afternoon we’ll do the first of two sets of vaccinations. Each puppy will get a dose of DHLPPC vaccine. Each letter stands for a disease; D=distemper, H=hepatitis, L=leptospirosis, P=parainfluenza, P=parvo and C=corona. Because there are 6 letters in the acronym, this vaccine is sometimes referred to as “6 way vaccine.” The pups also get a dose of Bordetella, or kennel cough, vaccine. Depending on the veterinarian, puppies get a series of three or four sets of “puppy shots”. They will get the first two while under the care of CCHS. About a week before they go back to the shelter we’ll give them the second set. This will help protect the pups while they are at the Shelter. The adopters will take the pups to their own veterinarian for the other two doses of each vaccine.

We have been able to have the pups on PuppyCam Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings from about 7 pm to 10 pm. We do the last feeding of the day on cam at about 10 pm and then sign off for the night.

If you’re interested in adopting Peter, Lois, or Stewie you can go to the Champaign County Humane Society in Urbana, IL and fill out an application. The adoption staff can arrange for you to visit with the puppies. We’re hoping the puppies will be ready to go home in three or four weeks.

Alice (was Megan)
Ralph (was Brian)
Peter
Lois
Stewie

Megan Breaks the Pound Barrier

Megan had a little growth spurt and she now weighs more than a pound. The pups will be five weeks old on Saturday and only one of them weighs more than a pound. These are the smallest pups we have ever had and it’s been a very interesting experience dealing with such little puppies.

Last week we learned that the person who brought the pups in said their mother was a purebred Chihuahua and their father was a Chihuahua/Rat Terrier mix. Rat Terriers are small dogs, though bigger than Chihuahuas. We think Megan and Brian take after their father and the other three are more Chihuahua like. It will be interesting to see what they look like fully grown.

Chihuahua Update

The Chihuahua Pups are four weeks old and doing well. Stewie has a little congestion, but he’s getting better by the day. We’ve had quite a few developments in the past week.

All the pups, except Stewie, have made the transition from bottle feeding to eating kibble that has been soaked in water to make it soft. It’s been interesting to figure out much to feed these little guys. We’re looking for slow, consistent weight gain from one day to the next. At their current size, Megan gets 8 kibbles per feeding, Brian gets 7, Peter and Lois get 5 each, and Stewie gets 3. Stewie is also getting a small amount of milk while he works through the congestion. We don’t want him getting dehydrated. As long as the general trend on the weight chart is up we’re doing fine. We’re down to five meals per day and by the end of this week or the beginning of next, we should be down to four. We’ll stay at four meals per day until the pups are ready to go back to the shelter.

Behaviorally, the pups have also made progress. We’re getting a lot of mouth games, pawing at each other, and generally what could be called play fighting. This is critical behavior and helps the pups learn proper dog etiquette and bite inhibition. They’re staying awake a little longer and are a lot of fun to play with.

Chihuahua Update

Since last week, things are looking up for the Chihuahua pups. All of the pups are stable, alert, and eating well. The shelter had some of the old formula milk replacer in their freezer and since we’ve switched back everyone’s doing great. We’re still hearing some congestion noises, but all things considered, I think we’ve turned the corner. Harriett and I are allowing ourselves to be optimistic about the outcome of this litter.

The pups were three weeks old on Saturday. This is the age at which we see many physical and behavioral changes. Their eyes are open and they can hear. The shape of their skulls is changing to a classic Chihuahua shape and their ears are starting to lift. Their teeth are also starting to come in.

We noticed tonight that Megan and Brian are starting to play mouth games (also known as play fighting). That’s a major milestone for puppies. I’ll be posting more on this important behavior in a future post.

The pups also had their first visitors on Sunday. They’re still not terribly active, but they stayed awake for about 15 minutes and didn’t mind being held and passed around.

It’s hard not to be amazed at how small they are! Megan, the biggest pup, is smaller than some newborns we’ve had in other litters. The three little ones only weigh about a half pound each. When fully grown, these pups will probably weigh only a few pounds.

Now that the puppies seem to be healthy, we will begin regular PuppyCam broadcasts later this week. I’ll send a tweet and post a note here when we decide the schedule. If all goes well we may be able to have a broadcast on Tuesday evening. Keep in mind, however, that puppies of this age sleep about 95% of the time. Don’t expect too much action.

The Last 48

When you eliminate all other possibilities, what remains, no matter how improbable, is the answer. – Sherlock Holmes

The last 48 hours has been a real roller coaster.

On Tuesday evening I posted an entry about Stewie beginning to crash. He was lethargic, doing abdominal breathing, and moving his mouth as though gasping for air. Bottle fed orphans are always very high risk fosters, and we were at a loss to explain how his condition could decline so dramatically in just a few hours. We got him to the shelter as soon as we could.

CCHS Medical Director, Jessica Buchholz, gave Stewie a thorough examination. Aspiration pneumonia is a constant worry with bottle-fed pups, but his lungs sounded fine. We don’t know why Stewie’s mom died. Could he have caught something from her that’s just now showing up? The only thing Jessica could do was supportive therapy. Stewie was put into a makeshift oxygen tent to ease his breathing and he was given subcutaneous fluids to treat his dehydration and Nutri-Cal to boost his blood sugar. Frankly, no one expected him to make it through the night. Shelter Manager, Michelle McKnight, took Stewie home with her so she could keep an eye on him. Michelle spent many years in the medical lab at CCHS and had access to anything she might need if his conditions worsened. I left CCHS depressed that we may have lost a pup with no idea why and no idea what implications there were for the four others in the litter.

On Wednesday morning we hadn’t heard any news of Stewie so I called Jessica. “Is he still with us?” I asker her. She told me Michelle hadn’t come in yet and she wasn’t sure of his status. I was going to have to check with Michelle. It’s the sort of call you don’t want to make, but have to. I called Michelle at home to see what happened over night. I was stunned when she told me that no only did he live through the night, but that they got him to eat almost a half jar of baby food! Apparently he wouldn’t take any formula from the bottle so they tried strained beef out of desperation. We met Michelle at CCHS, picked up Stewie, and brought him home. Despite his ordeal he had only lost a few grams of body weight. Amazing.

Everything was going fine on Wednesday all the way through the noon feeding. Jessica decided to come out to look over the litter to check each of the pups. She arrived in time for the 3 pm feeding. Each pup was given a check up. Jessica didn’t hear the telltale lung sounds of pneumonia in any of them, allowing us to rule out pneumonia as the cause of the problems. While Jessica was here we heard some nasal congestion noises and almost every pup blew milk out of its nose as soon as it started to nurse. Now what? With nothing conclusive to go by we decided to wait out the rest of the day to see what would happen.

Harriett went down to do the 7 pm feeding and called me to come down to have a look at Brian. He had been one of the strongest pups in the litter and was fine when Jessica was here four hours earlier. But now he was starting to show the same symptoms that Stewie had the night before. Again we were immediately on the phone to Jessica. Brian was not as bad as Stewie had been, so the decision was made to do the supporting therapy here and call her if he took a turn for the worse. Harriett decided to sleep downstairs next to the puppy room. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep anyway and she’d be close enough to check on him throughout the night. By 11 pm almost every pup was beginning to show the same symptoms, even Megan, the largest, strongest puppy. Something very bad was happening and we had no idea what it was or what to do about it.

At about 2 am on Thursday morning Harriett had a revelation. She kept asking herself how was it that Stewie made such a fast recovery? Why is every puppy getting sick now? Why is Stewie sick again? What has changed? Then it came to her and she started putting the pieces together. A couple of days before we had run out of Esbilac and she had opened another package. We buy milk replacer powder in bulk and keep it in the freezer. We had been using “old formula” Esbilac but the new package was of a newer formulation. She checked the labels but didn’t see any difference. She did a few searches on the web and, BINGO!, there it was. Many people, especially wildlife rehab groups, had reported severe problems when they started to use the new formula milk replacer. Web forums were full of speculation that ran the gamut from the product being tainted with metals to problems with the fat and other components not staying in suspension. Things were starting to make sense. While Stewie was away he didn’t get any of the new formula. Too tired to keep searching, at 3 am Harriett sent a note with a few links to CCHS Web Mistress, Barbara Meyer, an internet research expert and early-morning riser. Then she went to bed.

By the time we got up on Thursday morning, Barbara had found many reports of problems with the milk replacer. She also found a few sites that proposed solutions. So there we had it. The formula we were using was making the puppies sick. We took the entire litter to CCHS on Thursday morning. Jessica rigged up an oxygen cage using an old aquarium and the pups spent several hours under her watchful eyes. Each pup was given fluids and Nutri-Cal as needed through the day. They all improved. CCHS still had “old formula” milk replacer in their freezer and by 4 pm all of the pups had started eating again and were ready to come home.

They’re all back. Tonight’s 7 pm feeding went very well and hopefully this episode is behind us. This story illustrates the incredible support system CCHS has in place to back us up. Without the oxygen system in the surgical suite at the Shelter or the knowledge and expertise of Jessica and Michelle the outcome would have been very different for the pups. Barbara was able to find, in a very short time, information that other people would have taken days to locate if they were able to find it at all. I’ve always said that Harriett and I could not do this job alone and this is an excellent example of that truth.

Jessica Leaves / Stewie Returns

We took Jessica back to the Champaign County Humane Society this morning. In a few hours she’ll be on her way to Northern Lights Sled Dog Rescue where she will be in foster care until she’s adopted. Jessica is a nice dog with good house manners. We wish her the best.

While we were at the Shelter we picked up Stewie. He had a very bad day yesterday and spent a few hours on oxygen yesterday evening. When he was taken off the oxygen his breathing became very labored. It was not clear that he would make it through the night. Shelter Manager, Michelle, took him home to care for him. Although he would not nurse from the bottle, Michelle’s housemate, Erin, was able to get Stewie to eat some baby food. He was a bit more active this morning so we brought him home to be with the litter. Despite his ordeal he only lost 2 grams yesterday. We’ll be watching him closely for the next few days.

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.

PuppyCam: Meet the Pups

We’ll have a special PuppyCam broadcast on Saturday afternoon, June 12, from 1:00 to 2:00 pm CDT. We’ll introduce the pups, weigh them, and do their scheduled feeding. The event will be recorded, so if you can’t make it you’ll be able to see the replay.

New Scale

We’re switching scales. Our old one weighed in 5 gram increments, but these pups are so small that that’s not accurate enough to tell us how they are doing.  We’re upgrading to get more accurate weights for this litter. The new scale uses 1 gram increments.

Since we switched scales there may be a “bump” in the weights for the second weight today.

It's been a while since we've had puppies on this blog so I thought it would be a good idea to review the kinds of records we keep for our foster pups. Harriett designed a chart that lets us see, at a glance, the status of each puppy.

For each pup we record the gender and a short description on the far left. Once the pups get named we’ll add the name to that information area.

Our main indicator of progress are the puppies' weights. For the first 10-14 days each pup is weighed twice a day. We record the weights, in grams, on the chart. If everything is going well, each pup will gain weight every day. If the weight stays the same or decreases it indicates there is a problem. The circles on the weight chart highlight these situations. If we have the mother we’ll do supplemental feedings or sit with the mom and pup to be sure it gets a chance to eat properly. We sometimes use NutriCal, a high-calorie supplement, to support the pup (indicated by an ‘N’ on the bottom line of the chart).  If the weight does not stabilize and start to increase within two days we might have a serious illness developing and we’ll watch for other symptoms and consult with a veterinarian.



For orphans we record the volume of formula, in milliliters, each pup eats at each feeding. Those are the single-digit numbers in the sample above. We know how much each puppy should consume based on its weight, so we can run down the columns and add up the daily amount to be sure we’re at, but not too far over, our target. It’s bad to under- or overfeed the pups, so we watch these amounts carefully.

Special treatments, such as subcutaneous fluids, are also indicated on the last line of the chart. We use that information if we have to talk to a vet about a problem.

We will post a graph of the puppies’ weights at the top of the left column of this blog until the pups are about 5 weeks old. The weight is shown in ounces on the graph because that measurement is more familiar to most of our readers. Each pup is represented by a colored line.

For the first 10-14 days there will be two weights per day. If the pups are healthy at the two-week-old point we’ll drop to one weight per day. We’ll stop the daily weightings at the five-week-old point if everyone’s doing well and there are no problems.

Let’s hope we see all of the lines moving up as we go to the right.

Chihuahua Pups Update

We’re making progress! At the 10 AM feeding this morning, all of the puppies nursed from the bottle. The two weakest ones were slow, but this is an important milestone. The two strong pups have been doing pretty well with the bottle, but we were having to drip the milk into the mouths of the other three 1/10 of a ml at a time. It was taking about 40 minutes to feed and stimulate all five pups. Once they’re all nursing from the bottle the time will get cut back to 20-30 minutes.

The pups need to have a certain amount of formula each day. We record the amount each pup took at each feeding to be sure we at least hit the target amount and not go too far over. Harriett created a chart that tells us how much they need each day and we adjust the amount each time the pups are weighed (currently twice each day).

Everyone gained at least 5 grams since yesterday morning except one.  That one probably gained about that much, but our scale weighs in 5 gram increments and it was bouncing from 120 to 125 grams. These babies are tiny.

I’ve often commented here and on the PuppyCam about the number of people that help Harriett and me by giving us advice for complicated cases. No one has been more important to us in fostering than Dr. LeRoy Neitzel. Many long-time residents of Champaign-Urbana remember Dr. Neitzel. He was in private practice as a veterinarian for many years and was considered one of the best vets in town. He was a licensed wildlife rehabber and was President of the Board of the Champaign County Humane Society for 20 years.

When we started fostering, almost 20 years ago, it was way before CCHS had a staff veterinarian. There were no protocols for handing common things like wormings or vaccinations, much less difficult problems such as ringworm or respiratory infections. Dr. Neitzel was our vet and he set Harriett and me up with systems for sanitation, worming, vaccinations, and feeding. When the time came for us to deliver our first litter of pups he taught me how to be a canine midwife. He taught us how to bottle feed orphans and showed me how to do tube feedings for very sick pups. Virtually everything we do with our foster animals can somehow be traced back to Dr. Neitzel.

When we realized how dehydrated the Chihuahua pups were and noticed that one of them had only a slight suck reflex, Harriett was on the phone to Dr. Neitzel for advice. Long retired and living in Florida, he nevertheless ran through a list of things we should watch for and gave her some advice for feeding. As Harriett has said, “He is a wonderful resource and answers the questions you should have asked but didn't!” Dr. Neitzel will be very happy to hear that things are looking up for the pups. We’re not in the safe zone yet, but we’re moving in the right direction.

Chihuahua Pup Update

Bottle feeding orphans is a tricky business. You have to get the right amount of formula into them so they have enough liquids and nutrition, but at the same time you have to be very careful not to overfeed the pups or let them eat too fast. After we got the pups yesterday, we noticed that a couple of them were badly dehydrated. When the pups are dehydrated they don’t feel well. When they don’t feel well they don’t eat properly. When they don’t eat properly they get more dehydrated. It can be a vicious, fatal cycle.

To combat the dehydration we inject fluid under their skin. We wound up giving fluids to four of the five pups at first. After a few hours only two puppies still needed fluid support. They each got two more subcutaneous injections last night. I’m happy to report that by this morning everyone is stable and we haven’t had to give any fluids today. Four pups have maintained or gained weight. Unfortunately, puppy #5 has lost about 10 grams since yesterday so we’re having to keep a very close watch on him.

The amount of milk replacement formula the puppies need is calculated based on their weight. These puppies weigh about 4 ounces each and need 30 – 35 ml of formula per day. The feedings are scheduled to evenly distribute that amount over a 24-hour period. We’ve settled on 3 hours between feedings during the day and 4 hours at night. That means we only have to get up once at night to feed the pups. There are a total of 7 feedings times each day so each pup needs to drink 5 ml of formula at each feeding. To convert that into measurements that may be more familiar, each pup gets one teaspoon of formula at each feeding and a little over 2 tablespoons per day.

We track progress by weighing the puppies twice a day. We consider them making progress if they gain some weight each day. If the weight stays the same they go on the watch list. A decrease in weight means a serious problem may be developing and we have to give that pup special attention. In another day or two I will begin posting the weight chart at the top of the left column of this blog so you can track their weights with us.