puppies2018 | Dangerous Common Sense

Day 9 — Weighing In

MUNI is continuing to grow at a satisfyingly fast rate. Yay!

In addition to looking at her chubby, wriggling body and healthy, shiny coat, Geoffrey weighs her every morning to make sure our subjective observations match objective measures.

MUNI’s day starts with an after breakfast (or after her 8th breakfast at 8 am) weighing in.

MUNI at her weigh in on the towels lining the bowl that’s on top of the food scale.
CLICK on the picture for a larger, clearer version!

This morning at 8:10 MUNI was 13.89 oz, up from 12.52 yesterday at 7:25. She is growing at a good clip!

MUNI’s low weight was recorded a week ago, Tuesday, September 25. That morning at 7:30 she weighed 6.77 oz.

Depending on which who you listen to, puppies are supposed to double their weight in either 10 or 14 days. MUNI made it in 7. Puppies are also supposed to gain 10% of their weight daily for the first 10 days. She is on track by this measure, too.

We are happy with MUNI’s gusto for food and life. We hope it continues!

About the only issue we have right now is Zenith’s picky eating. It’s not that she’s not eating. Rather, she is very fussy and changes her tastes from meal to meal.

For breakfast today she ate some boiled chicken, cottage cheese, and 1/4 of a raw egg. She didn’t want the wet Science Diet food that she gobbled down for a few meals a couple days ago. She doesn’t want kibble, of course.

The cottage cheese finally gave her diarrhea around noon (as predicted by the vet), and she also spit up a small portion of her breakfast on that trip outside.

Midafternoon I thought I’d replace the missing upchucked calories by giving her more egg… and I decided to lay off the cottage cheese for a bit.

Well! She didn’t want the raw egg! It was only after I heated it like a scrambled egg, cooled it, and brought to her in a new plate did she decide she would eat the 1/2 egg.

For dinner, she still wanted no wet Science Diet or kibble. But, she ate a whole heated scrambled egg and over 1/2 of a small boiled chicken breast. And, raw carrots and Zuke treats are back on her approved list.

Good thing Zenith is very cute and being a very good mother to MUNI! And, let’s hope that her pickiness is the worst problem we have in the coming weeks.

Paws crossed!

By Galen|2018-10-02T20:15:26-07:00October 2, 2018|dachshunds|0 Comments

Day 8 — MUNI is Measuring Up

I’m knocking on wood as I write this. We don’t have a life-threatening crisis in the pack at the moment. Knock, knock!

Zenith and MUNI have been comfortable spending the day together in the whelping box. Zenith will come out and greet the rest of the pack and go out back to do doggie things in the backyard (or not). She’s eaten reasonable a reasonable breakfast and dinner. She makes gruntled noises when you reach in and pet her while she’s nursing.

MUNI is doing her part, too. She’s eating, sleeping, and growing. This morning, a 1/4 day short of her one-week milestone, she weighed in at 12.51 oz. That’s nearly the goal of double her low weight of 6.77 oz last Tuesday. Maybe by 2 this afternoon she’d hit double… I hope so!

Day 8 – An Inch a Day MUNI
Go ahead. Click on the picture to see a bigger version.

Our local vet assured me today that if mother and daughter were peaceful, it’d be okay for me to take Paris to get a shot (for yet another UTI). The girls seemed to have no signs of neglect after being on their own for 70-or-so minutes.

MUNI also is doing small amounts of crawling in the box. Over to my stretched-out arm and back over to Mother Zenith.

Normal, happy puppy things… for a welcome change.

By Galen|2018-10-01T18:51:31-07:00October 1, 2018|dachshunds|0 Comments

Day 7 — [Over] Protective Parents Focusing on MUNI

I would be a terribly overprotective parent. Any child of mine would not be allowed to cross the street unescorted until they turned 18. So, you can imagine how carefully I am watching MUNI since we learned of her brother’s death.

Fortunately, she weighed in at 11.4 oz this morning, almost a full ounce more than yesterday. She is sleeping, eating, and generally seems okay.

Day 7 – MUNI and Galen’s Hand

Geoffrey stayed at home in the puppy room while I went to church today. He said all was peaceful.

Zenith and MUNI have moved to the back of the covered whelping box. Why? Let me helicopter down and find out. They seem fine.

Well, actually Zenith is full of milk and being a good mother. But, she is a very picky eater, seemingly wantiing only one large meal at the end of the day and maybe a couple lighter snacks. Boiled chicken, cottage cheese, and egg were tonight’s dinner. No Science Diet, thank you. Oh, carrots are back on her menu as treats, but the Zukes and kibble are still treif. Zenith has always been selective about her diet, but her “Yes”/”No” eating decisions are stressful this week!

Zenith has also chewed her skin on the top of her back by her tail so that it’s raw. Why? Photos have gone to the vets for their suggestions. Other than that and her scratching at her sides, she seems getting back to her normal personality. When MUNI is sleeping Zenith has even started coming out for a couple minutes to socialize with the very curious and concerned pack.

So, we are nurturing our one puppy successfully, so far, we think!

By Galen|2018-10-01T18:55:07-07:00September 30, 2018|dachshunds|1 Comment

Day 6 — Metro Died

We received a call from the hospital about 11 last night. The doctor told us that Metro had died.

We feel the loss.

This is the first puppy we have had die in our three litters. We know that the rate of puppy mortality is fairly high, but Metro’s is our first death.

Metro struggled to find his way from his first moments. The photo below shows the care team at Bishop Ranch trying to help Metro latch on to his mother. He really never got the hang of finding a nipple and eating.

Trying to Help Metro Eat in His First Hour of Life

We very, very much appreciate the warm wishes of support and for Metro’s recovery.

Thank you.

We also feel extraordinarily lucky to have been able to have given him as much support as humanly possible. He had top-quality professional care delivered with kindness and warmth.

The vets could find no birth defects, injuries, or objective cause for Metro’s reluctance to suck and eat. There was nothing to fix, nothing to point to as “The Cause.”

Sometimes, a puppy is not able to thrive.

Goodbye, Metro. We remember you with love.

By Galen|2018-10-01T18:55:24-07:00September 30, 2018|dachshunds|8 Comments

Day 6 — An Emergency Metro Update

Metro Being Bottle Fed at Home Earlier this Week

Metro Has Aspirated Milk at the Hospital…

They tube fed him and gave him the bottle which he sucked on some. They put him back in his cage and the next time they checked him, at about 4 pm, they saw milk coming from his nose and mouth. They x-rayed and confirmed that there is fluid in his lungs … they are giving him oxygen, and he’s fighting still. The doctor said that there’s nothing they can do beyond the oxygen, giving him a prophylactic antibiotic, and hoping. It doesn’t look good, but there’s still a chance, apparently.

We know most breeders keep puppies like this at home and do the tube feeding, etc. We just didn’t feel experienced enough, especially since we hadn’t been shown how/practiced. We didn’t know if we could really feed him every hour as the hospital said he needed. And we also worried about keeping him warm. And, the local vets said us trying to tube feed him was dangerous and they recommended against it. Basically, this is our third litter in 25 years and we just didn’t prepare ourselves well enough for something that is common, but not in our experience.

Geoffrey and I have talked. We felt that having him in the hospital stretched our budget but it was giving him the best care. That has been worth it.

From a psychological perspective, for our future litters and for us, having Metro in the hospital was a good thing. If the outcome is not good, we know that he failed even though he had the best medical care. If the outcome was not good after we kept him at home, we would blame ourselves. We also know that even with the professional medical care, some puppies can aspirate… aspiration is not necessarily caused by us making a mistake.

We know breeders understand that some puppies don’t make it and there is nothing you can do. We intellectually knew that ourselves. But, our experience with Metro makes it real. And, we didn’t slip up and keep him from succeeding.

The next litter, we will be prepared for tube feeding. We will ask for instructions from our reproduction vet. We will have enough supplies lined up, and we will also do a better job of clearing our calendars so that the lack of sleep doesn’t impact our work life.

Geoffrey is on his way home from having visited Metro at the hospital. Geoffrey brought him a t-shirt with the smells of his sister and mother on it. Geoff held Metro and left him on top of the t-shirt. Geoffrey says Metro is weak, but the doctors believe that he is breathing better than he was a bit ago. The doctors plan to back off the amount of food they were giving him per meal; they suspect he overate and regurgitated some which got into his lungs.

There’s still a chance.

By Galen|2018-09-29T19:27:33-07:00September 29, 2018|dachshunds|4 Comments