The Townies

Today we brought home a litter of eight puppies that were relinquished as a result of an investigation. Covered with urine and feces, these five week old orphans will require some medical care to get them into shape. They have been treated for fleas as well as internal parasites, and one of them has a prolapsed rectum, a bump on his eyelid, and enlarged lymph nodes.

We’ll refer to this litter as “The Townies.” The staff at the Champaign County Humane Society named them after the small, surrounding towns near where we live. The litter is unusual because it has seven males and one female.

You can see that they have Dachshund-like bodies. Supposedly their mom was a Labrador and dad was a Dachshund. Since dad probably didn’t stand on a box, I assume mom was either a very small Labrador or, most likely, not a Labrador at all. You’d be surprised at how many people cannot identify the breed of their dog and many people assume that any short-haired black dog is a Labrador.

I’ll be posting updates over the coming days. The puppies will be with us for at least three weeks.

Fisher (m)
Gibson (m)
Homer (m)
Sydney (f)
Philo (m)
Ogden (m)
Paxton (m)
Champ (m)

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.

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