Blue Collar Boy

One pup came first. He looked good, but didn`t seem to want to suckle which is worrisome. So we have some supplement that we tried. I was resistant to the idea of tubing, so we tried instead a finger in the mouth and waiting for suckle reflex, and then dribbling formula down the chin and into the mouth.

I was pretty tired at this point, from 4 days of vigilant observation of Havoc, but it was a great relief when the little blue boy started eating a bit. I fed him again later on, before we headed to the vet clinic to try to get the other pups out, so he was content.

Once at the vet clinic everyone was pretty wrapped up in trying to revive pups, so the little already born blue boy (blue vet wrap collar) was placed under the heat lamp to stay warm without mom. Over the next few hours he had periods of panting, so I figured that the lamp was set for damp newborn pups, but was a bit hot for him. So I carried him around periodically to let me cool off.

Thinking about it now, I should probably have fed him, but at that point I was only thinking about what else was going on in the room, with Havoc`s pups coming out. Now I wonder how hungry the poor little gaffer must have been. And it must have been pretty stressful to be carted to the vet, left without a mother for the good part of a day and then carted back home.

At the vet clinic when we tried latching the new pups on Havoc they grabbed on right away, but this one day old one was still not trying. He just wouldn`t open his mouth. I tried to open it and pup him on a teat, but he just fought me, and would have non of it.

I brought the pups home with Havoc later on in the afternoon. Havoc was looking good, and the pups just lay contentedly beside her. Once we got home again the yellow boy and pink girl were right in there like dirty shirts to eat, but the blue boy still would have none of it, even when I expressed some milk on the teat and put him there.

Now I was getting a bit worried about him. At every opportunity he would crawl far away from Havoc and littermates, into a corner, often underneath papers and blankets, and simply lie there. My thoughts now are that when we supplemented, the food came fairly quickly down my finger. So after that, when he checked out Havoc, the food came much more slowly and he actually had to work for it, so he wasn`t as interested.

So in the interim, because he was looking weaker, and had lost weight since the day before, I gave him milk replacer again. Then, twice in the middle of the night, when the pups were starting to eat, I took blue boy, forced his mouth open and on a teat, and FINALLY he grabbed hold and kept with it!

With that I was actually able to sleep for a couple of hours, which after so many days of vigilance, was really welcome.

But on the second day we are up to ... if I put him on a teat he will stay there and suckle, but he won`t commit by himself yet (I have to open his mouth). And he is still done with dinner much quicker than eithor of the other two. Still not sure if he will make it, but trying to get him eating every time the others do.

Update: Sadly this boy did not make it. He became more and more diffcult to feed, and became weaker and weaker, and continued to lose weight, until finally at only four days old, he was gone.