Diary of a Runty Pup - Page 2

many, many years ago my cat had a litter and 2 of the kittens' eyes opened after only a few days. we didn't do anything about it and the kittens were fine.

i'm wondering if keeping the eye closed after it has opened will create a welcome place for bacteria, guess that's a question for the vet.

Wow, bless you for doing what you are doing! He will be an amazing dog and you will glow with pride! Good Mama! People like you do not get enough credit. I have raised orphaned pups, kittens, and goats. I know how hard it is and how rewarding it is. But anyone who has never done it does not know how much devotion and worry it takes.
This little guy would not have made it thus far without u.

I also raised a runt recently,but sadly the out come was different.  She was born less than half the size of her littermates.
I took her away from her mother and litter mates at about 10-14 days,and started feeding her myself. She seemed to do well for a while,gained a bit of weight,and I thought she would be alright. At 3 weeks she weighed 2 pounds,but stlii half the size of her littermates. At four weeks she became a little terror,she would try to bite your toes off and crowl like a little terrier mauling a varmit.  Took her and her littermates for their first shots a the age of about 7 weeks. The runt weighed in at 4 1/2 pounds,the rest of the litter were betwen 9-10 pounds.  This is when I learned the runt had a grade 3 heart murmer.   Four days after her vet visit I noticed that she was loosing a bit of balance in her back end,and would fall over to one side just in her back end for a second,and then would tare around again like nothing happened.
A couple of weeks ago the wife and I went shopping,came home and found her laying dead in her crate.  I did notice a bit of blood in her nostrils.  I just dont know if the heart murmer,the vacinations or something else t killed her.  She will forever be in our heart. She was the cutest little girld that we have ever had. She also was the first pup we ever had that had a heart murmer.

  P.S.  She was so cute that it would bring tears to your eyes.

    God bless
  gouda

Puppy is 1 week old today (Friday)
Both yesterday and today he's been having a little rougher time.  He's skinny and bony again and not as strong as he was a few days ago.  He had a growth spurt and his frame is very noticeably larger than it was on Wednesday, so I think this may be the cause of his fat loss.  He had almost no fat to start with, then gained some fat for a few days, then this big growth spurt took what little fat he had managed to store up. 
I decided to add a little bit of raw apple cider vinegar with the 'mother' to his formula and I've given him a more extensive feeding cycle.  He's getting fed every hour now again (he was getting fed every hour for his first two days of life, then I gradually extended his feeding schedule to every two and a half to three hours)
I did tube feed him again several times yesterday and this morning and early afternoon.  He is better now than he was last night so I'm stopping the tube feeding again unless he seems like he needs it again.
I've also added puppy nutri-cal to his feeding.  I figured out a really good way to do this without getting totally sticky messy.  I have a super soft nipple for a wide baby bottle (playtex) and I made the hole slightly bigger so the nutri-cal squeezes out easily in a thin stream, fill the end of the nipple with the nutri-cal (almost 2 cc's worth) and he can suck some down.

So now his schedule is:
hour one: stimulate potty, bottle feed (take breaks to burp), cuddle for a few minutes
hour two: feed nutri-cal, give him a baby massage (especially in the belly area to help his digestion)
hour three: stimulate potty, bottle feed (with burp breaks) and cuddle
Repeat for the next 48 hours at least, (come on girl, I can do this, I've gone this long and longer without sleep before LOL)
Thank God for timers too.

Tomorrow I'm going to add another egg yolk to his formula mix to increase the fat there.  These eggs are from free-range chickens with access to pasture and a well varied diet, so they are much more nutrient dense and fresher than the typical store eggs)

As for his eye, I don't have it taped shut, I just have the band aid there to encourage him to keep it shut on his own, but he is still fully capable of opening and closing it with the band aid there.  He outgrew the tiny band aids I had been using so now I'm using regular size band aid.  the non-sticky gauze part is what covers his eye, there is enough gap that I can see how his eye is doing and give him eye drops.  The band aid also protects his eye from light if he opens it.  As far as I can tell, his eye seems to be doing real good.  No sign of infection, no unusual cloudiness, discharge, crustyness or gummyness. 

I also put him in a bigger box, he outgrew his boot box. 

Say your prayers for the little guy.

My sister-in-law said her kids would get a little bit of a belly just before a growth spurt, so what you're seeing could be completely normal. Hopefully the extra calories will be all he needs to get through this next stage.

What does he weigh now?

I don't have the scale with me anymore   When I took him back to his owner's on Wednesday I also took everything I had borrowed from them, one of which was the scale.  I forgot to snag that and bring it back with me when we determined he couldn't go back to his mom.  

He's getting gradually better again, but just very gradually.  He's going to need to continue the extensive feeding schedule so he has enough calories to survive his next big growth spurt.  

I raised a litter on Esbilac and they are smaller then normal but as soon as they were weaned they caught up to normal size.

At this age, do no make and sudden changes to their diet, if he gets the runs its really horrible and dangerous. Watch for denydration it will sneak up on you very quickly. I was given a bag of ringers lactate and instructions on how to inject subq.

My vet told me to feed them until till their bellies looked like forg bellies. The can's instruction was not even close to enough for them. She also said feed them every 2 to 3 yours and don't worry if you miss 1 feeding at night.

If tube feeding is done correctly, there's much less a chance of asperation. Make sure you put a mark on the cathiter and check it every few days to verify that tube is in far enough. Pinch a toe to get him to holler to make sure its in his belly instead of his lungs....

When my litter was 2 weeks the vet gave each a long lasting antibiotic injection and that seemed to make a big differend.

Also, make sure you worm him at 2 weeks. He will need as much nutrition as he can get......and the worms will steal it.

Pup is 11 days old now.  He continues to get bigger (no where near his sibling's size though.)  His open eye is doing very well and I noticed today that his other eye is starting to crack open, right on schedule.  I'm not going to put a bandaid over his eye anymore, it should be fine now. 
He's still struggling with being underweight, it seems to change every few hours, sometimes he looks a lil fatter, sometimes he looks a lil skinnier. 
The big thing I'm worried about now is his muscle tone, for some reason he seems to be losing his muscle (and therefore, his strength)  Each time I feed him and clean him now I am making sure to encourage him to use his legs to push himself with.   

He found his voice yesterday, lol, normally he is very quiet but he started making yipping noises yesterday (when he's ready to eat again or needs to potty again or just wants to be held) It's so cute to hear his voice changing and starting to sound more like a dog (albeit a very little dog!)
He's a very snuggly pup now, in his first week he seemed not to care if I was holding him or if he was sunbathing under the heat lamp, now he seems to prefer being held and petted versus being by himself in his box. 

Gouda, that scares me :(  especially to loose a pup so old!  I'm thinking that every day he survives is one day closer to growing up and living a normal life.  

Maybe this will make you feel better!


My runty puppy at 24 hours old, with her biggest brother. She was 8.5 oz., he was 22 oz.!
We called him 'Hoss' because he was so fat he had practically no neck, like the late Dan Blocker (Hoss Cartwright). We called her 'Tiny Teena', sort of a combination of 'teeny', and the first name of the Shiloh breed founder, Tina Barber. (Yep, she's a Shiloh, not a GSD.)

 




My 'runt' at 2 years of age: 27" tall and 80 lbs!




She never did have to be bottle fed, though. Her breeder just made sure she got equal time on the nipple with the other pups. Twoo weeks after weaning, she had caught up to her sisters in body weight.

Why would a vet vaccinate that pup?! Gosh, Gouda, that would infuriate me. No common sense.