Oh Yeah, You Blend

TWO important things happened with little Popcorn today:

• first, she maintained her weight at weigh in this morning (I tube fed and hydrated her overnight)
• second, she actually PUT ON 4 GRAMS BY NURSING! This is HUGE, because she’d only been managing to maintain her weight between tube feedings, but today she actually GAINED. Only 4 grams, but it’s in the right direction.

At tonight’s weigh in, she’s 169 grams, 11 grams above her first weight, and 19 grams above the 150 grams she’d been hovering at.

Something is helping, so I won’t be changing anything until I see her gaining on her own. She is a fighter, she’s not floppy, she’s got normal muscle tone, she argues about the tube feeding, she grumbles and squeals when another puppy tries to push her off the teat she’s on, she moves around like the others. She doesn’t act like a sick puppy. As I’ve mentioned before I really think she’s fighting a combination of things: I think she got a lousy spot in the uterus so she’s small, she had to wait to be born and was physiologically stressed, she was born under anesthesia via c section, so didn’t get the normal squishing and stimulation from a vaginal birth AND had the compromise of anesthetic (even though it was very well-managed anesthesia). I am pulling for her, and I’m not giving up unless she does. She looks plumper today.

Here’s what I’m doing:

• tube feeding with warmed Myra’s formula (homemade puppy formula) every 4 hours or so – this is a “top up” to the nursing she’s doing, and sometimes her tummy is pretty full and she can only hold a cc or 2. But every cc I get in is calories that she doesn’t have to expend any energy acquiring.
• Nutri Drops every 8 hours, this is an energy boost and amino acid supplement
• liver water as often as she will take some
• warmed subcutaneous fluids ONLY if she seems dehydrated. While dehydration can be deadly, I don’t want to be poking holes in her skin if I don’t have to
• letting the larger puppies get the inguinal teats started, then moving her to one of those teats

Zhora is feeling much better with anti nausea medication on board. She ate beef and rice and chicken and rice mixed with Esbilac and some oatmeal very well today. No vomiting. The diarrhea is still there so another dose of metronidazole tonight. I am giving her low sodium broth to try and increase her fluid intake since the diarrhea has to be taking a toll there. THANK GOODNESS for the mother’s porridge – that helped her milk come back in very quickly after her feeling so lousy yesterday!

Every breeder has what they call “the litter from hell” at some point (hopefully only one….)…

Littlest puppy Popcorn was maintaining the weight she was at after her initial loss (150 grams), but not gaining anything (Zhora’s milk is good because all the other puppies are gaining well). So I decided to pull out all the stops. I am worried about her, I won’t lie, but she’s not going anywhere without a fight so…I am tube feeding her every 3-4 hours (she is nursing well, but I think she’s burning most of the calories she’s getting just by nursing), I am giving her warmed subcutaneous fluids any time I think she’s a little dehydrated (dehydration can kill a neonatal puppy fast), I am giving her Nutri Drops. I got up to feed her overnight too (I am getting pretty good at tube feeding, so that’s a plus). She’s up to 163 grams and hasn’t lost anything between her feeding overnight and this morning, I am calling that a small victory. She doesn’t like the tube feeding but it gets the formula where it needs to be without her having to expend any energy eating it. She is nice and warm (cold puppies can’t digest) and quite spunky and active.

In addition, poor Zhora was vomiting and had diarrhea. She doesn’t have a fever at least. I am used to a bit of diarrhea after whelping, but the vomiting was making me nervous. Spoke to the awesome Dr Gray again this morning and started Zofran (which is safe for nursing moms) for the nausea/vomiting and metronidazole, which is not normally recommended for nursing dogs but the diarrhea is bad. We will use as little as possible for as short a time as possible to get the diarrhea under control. I cooked her some chicken and rice, and she ate a bowl of it. I also got her some calcium citrate to give in addition to the other calcium, because it can be absorbed without food. It’s not impossible that she has retained a bit of placenta, but Dr Gray thinks it’s unlikely.

Sleep is for the weak.