A litter vom Herbstmond

[Misskiwi67]

Some lucky husband is getting a puppy for Christmas and doesn't know it yet...









Milk Coma...

[mtlhdr]

Congrats on the litter. Look forward to hearing about their development.

[hicntry]

The eyes should be opening soon and I bet they are a lot bigger now. Any new photos? How big is the one you were hand feeding at this point?

[Misskiwi67]

Eyes opened on some the day before last, and the rest yesterday. We started the early neuro stimulation over the weekend. Pretty simple, it's just a matter of making sure there's a cold towel prepped before momma goes on potty break.

A hint of beard?? I did test Ari for the furnishings gene, and shes homozygous so all the pups will have beards.

Puppy pile


"Special puppy" or Armina weighs 10 ounces today.


Video of first steps:
https://youtu.be/D6OYsU9YwFw

We have plans to take photos of all the pups on Thursday, so will have a better update then.

[Misskiwi67]

Here's the pics from the photo shoot Thursday.

[Misskiwi67]

More photos...








C-section puppy next to the biggest male. She's now 12 ounces.

[AverageGuy]

Cute little boogers. The new owners will love those photos.

[Misskiwi67]

Cute little boogers. The new owners will love those photos.

They went nuts and are begging for more. A few are already picking favorites even though personalities aren't apparent yet (except for one very vocal female).

[Misskiwi67]

Pups are 4 weeks old and getting more mobile daily. They get harder to photograph too!

C-section puppy didn't make it. She was growing well and suddenly developed an infection that turned into meningitis (seizures). She went from great to gone in 12 hours.

We have upgraded to the indoor/outdoor pen. We ended up with 10x20 indoor and 10x10 outside.

[hicntry]

Just out of curiosity...why did you put the larger kennel indoors and the 10x10 outside instead of the other way around?

[Misskiwi67]

Just out of curiosity...why did you put the larger kennel indoors and the 10x10 outside instead of the other way around?

Because we didn't realize we had the extra panel until after we had already moved some steel scraps next to the outside kennel. We were replacing some rusted out panels and one ended up better than we thought, we just flipped it around and made more space. We ran out of daylight and figured good enough.

If I'd known, we would have done the other way around.

[hicntry]

Something for you to think about. Healthy pups are always active from the time they hit the ground. This is your first litter and you are spending a lot of time trying to save a weak puppy. If you manage to save it, you owe it to yourself to keep it so you learn from it. It will never measure up to the healthy pups of the litter. Once you watch that pup with the others as it gets older, you will realize that. Saving the weak does the pup no favor, does the breed no favor, and does any possible owners no favor.

The pup is weak because of poor oxygen during birth, not genetics. There's an associated syndrome that she should recover fully from thanks to the immaturity of her nervous system and that is why she's worth the effort. I just need to get enough calories into her so she can catch up.

Ive seen plenty of genetic messed that were better off without the extra nurturing, so I absolutely get where you are coming from. I'm not sure if I would put this much effort into a puppy that was more obviously fading rather than having been in distress (low heart rate on ultrasound) prior to C-section.

I will absolutely keep her if there's any question about her hunting ability.

Did you learn anything from your first experience regarding "oxygen deprivation". From the later picture of the pup next to a normal sized littermate, at 10 oz., it is obvious that with all the calories you are putting into the pup, it isn't "thriving". Lack of thriving is usually a sign of a bad heart.

[Misskiwi67]

Did you learn anything from your first experience regarding "oxygen deprivation". From the later picture of the pup next to a normal sized littermate, at 10 oz., it is obvious that with all the calories you are putting into the pup, it isn't "thriving". Lack of thriving is usually a sign of a bad heart.

She was a pound and a half when she died. She died of complications of Klebsiella pneumoniae infection, likely secondary to not getting enough colostrum. She was recovering from the first infection when the photo you see was taken. We gave her a plasma transfusion to give her the antibodies, and she responded well to antibiotics. I stopped the antibiotics early because she was getting constipated and her stool color showed she wasn't digesting well. When I stopped, she started to thrive. Unfortunately, the infection came back with a vengeance and killed her.

[hicntry]

I'll take that as a no.

[Misskiwi67]

I'll take that as a no.

Yeah, probably not. Next time I will give plasma immediately. I WAS starting to worry about her mobility as she was growing fast but not gaining muscle in her hind legs. I wish Id had more time to see how she would turn out.