This is a very hard post to write. This past week started out so well. The puppies and Shisa seemed to be healthy, and Shisa even surprised us with one more energetic and very vocal little girl later the day after I posted last week's blog. Once cleaned up, she revealed she had a green tint to her coat - something that will fade with time, and isn't anything to be concerned about. Instead, we were laughing about having a little leprechaun puppy on Saint Patrick's Day.
To our dismay though, things went downhill from there. Shisa's anxiety levels started climbing, and she couldn't settle, pacing, whining, and carrying around puppies, rather than letting them eat. She'd clean them constantly, but even when she'd be laying down, we're not sure the puppies were able to actually eat. I weigh the pups regularly, to help monitor for trouble, and by Tuesday evening, the pups were losing weight. We monitored them all night, even starting to bottle feed the worst of them, but by morning, their condition was much worse. Shisa couldn't settle unless she was curled up against us, and likely would have been in our laps if she hadn't also wanted the puppies close. But even with the physical contact, she was not relaxed. So first thing Wednesday morning, we rushed Shisa and the pups to the vet, intending to be there the moment they opened their doors in hopes of getting at least an emergency appointment.
The vet checked Shisa over and ran some tests, and couldn't find anything wrong. She gave us some anti-anxiety medications for Shisa, in hopes of that letting her calm down and care for her pups properly, before sending her home where she'd hopefully have the least stressful environment. We also picked up more formula, as some of the pups were highly lethargic, and they would need bottle feeding if there was a chance of them pulling through. It took several hours for the medicine to start kicking in for Shisa, but after 4 hours, she could finally lay still without having to be in physical contact with us, and some of the pups were starting to be able to nurse. Sadly, two pups had already passed away. We set up a second pen upstairs in our room, and moved Shisa and the pups there Wednesday evening, to make monitoring and feeding the pups easier overnight. Plus, since Shisa seemed most calm if we were nearby, we thought that might help too. By morning though, one more pup, our little leprechaun, had died.
Thankfully, things started improving from there. By Thursday afternoon, the smallest of the group (Dark Blue) was finally figuring out how to nurse from Shisa, and adamantly fighting any attempts to offer him a bottle. The other three (light blue, pink, and orange) were nursing well, and all of them were steadily gaining weight. All four of them now fight being offered a bottle, and insist on just nursing. By Thursday, they all had regained every bit of the weight they had lost, plus more. Even the little dark blue one, who still is the smallest and had lost the most weight, was holding his own. By Friday, they had put on enough weight that I could safely stop trying to bottle feed them, especially since they fought it so much. And Saturday, and then again Sunday I was excited to finally need to enlarge their collars. We're still monitoring them in our room (which means very little sleep on our part), but we're hopeful that the worst is passed.
Shisa didn't like the whelping pads we had on the floor, and was constantly digging them up into piles. This caused a problem, as the pups would crawl underneath the pile, and we'd have to carefully fish them out so that they wouldn't be stepped on or laid on top of by Shisa. We took them out for the first day they were upstairs, just to help with Shisa's stress. But Friday we carefully taped them to the floor, as our floors are to smooth for the pups to be able to easily crawl to their mother to nurse. Shisa has managed to pull them free from the tape, but she is now leaving the pads alone, which makes all our lives much easier.
Needless to say, I didn't get a whole lot of pictures taken this week, as I was rather distracted by taking care of our poor pups. My wonderful husband took over all my normal chores for most of the week, so I could stay with Shisa and the puppies.
Poor Raiju has been having to spend most of his time outside now, to keep the traffic upstairs in the house as low as we can, in order to help keep Shisa from getting stressed again. We've tried giving him treats so he won't feel completely neglected, including a rawhide, since he won't have Shisa stealing it. However, he has proven again his disregard for such things, and while he'll occasionally carry the rawhide around (since he knows that it is a treat and we gave it to him), he hasn't chewed on it at all, and just drops it and walks away after a bit. So at the moment that leaves milk bones, something he will actually eat, though sometimes only after carrying them around for a minute. I know he likes actual bones, so next time I'm at the store, I'll have to try to pick up one or two for him.
We're trying to give him attention when we're doing outdoor chores and tending our other animals as well, and letting him stretch his legs and run, before having to once again either be on a leash at our sides, or in the back yard alone. We do bring him inside and put him in his kennel at the side of our bed at night, so he can be with us. He's avoiding the puppy pen as much as he can, so I'm hoping that means it won't be long before he can be lose inside again, and Shisa won't mind him. She hasn't shown any antagonism or aggression towards him or the cats, but she watches them very closely whenever they come in sight.
So... that was our week. My husband and I are exhausted, but otherwise, things seem to be steadily improving. I'm praying that this is the last post of this sort that I ever have to write again, as even though I know we did all we could, the fact that we still lost several puppies hurts. It has been heartbreaking seeing Shisa go searching through the house the first few days, trying to find her lost babies. And I grieve for those that were looking forward to being able to bring one of the sweet babies home, only to have that taken away.
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