gallica.us

Fare Thee Well...

If you have been following Scandal's litter, you know we have been quite concerned about Little One, who was not doing well.  This morning at 4:18 am, little one went home (we know exactly because Charlie was holding her).  For those of us who breed our Scotties out of pure love for this little "big" dog - loosing a puppy is always hard.  Over the past few days we have worked very hard to save this little one, and we want to extend our thanks to many of you who offered great help, support and suggestions (click read more below)....

Little one, as I've been calling her, was born naturally and first, which means there was a bit of a delay (6 hours) before she got to nurse as the c-section intervened.  She was quite small (5.8 ounces or 165 grams), but we have had smaller (Zuzu for instance) and she seemed quite vigorous.  As you can see from the growth chart;- she started off growing pretty well, but on about the 26th she really started to slow down. We started supplementing her, and quickly went to full tube feeding regimen of 8 cc's every 3 hours (we also did a 6 cc's every 2 hours for a bit as she seemed to tolerate 6 cc's a little better). As you can see, towards the end she did start to gain a little more weight (we started weighing her before and after each feeding and seeing a small (1-2g) gain each time), but while she was gaining, it was still too slow and she was acting weaker and weaker. She also had no suckling interest.

At the end - as shown in this photo, she spent most of her time under one of our shirts staying warm and loved. We needed to make sure her temp was staying up high enough to make tube feeding viable (at least 94-95 degrees) and if she stayed in the whelping box, it was marginal if she wandered away from her family.  Last night she spent cuddled up with Charlie in bed.

Again - thanks to all for the help and support on this little puppy.  In the end, she was meant to be here for just a few days - and she was cherished and loved all that time.