Puppies that fail to thrive - Page 1

One thing when doing animals that we see many young ones failing to thrive the first few days of life, as a breeder we had learned to identify the such puppies and take necesassary actions.
For the puppies that really do no thrive despite bottle feeding etc... what should there out come be. Should they be humanely euthanise or let mother nature take its own course. Please mind that these puppies are deformed such as have cleft plates, missing or damaged limbs and sometimes damage from the mother.

crazydog deformed puppies should be humanely PTS --- Never try to keep them going.

Did you have a litter with all of those deformities??

in my last litter the runt has the most difficult time, he was tiny, he needed help learning to suckle, he didn't do well on the bottle.... I made sure that he had plenty of time on the teat without compitition..runt boy had no deformities - thank God! runt boy was my favorite and has grown into a beautiful young dog.

Crazydog, from your post, you've already "judged" the "failing puppy", so, in this "gsd court", i declear you "biased", against a helpless animal. Some could strive, surviving the initial weakness, some may die off while trying.

I would let the mother decide, they always do. It's natures way.

My last litter had and runt but he was never bottle fed. He is now an oversize male with a head that is absolutely huge, deep chest, very good angulation and croup, extremely wide across the back and hips and through the front-chest. Just an overall huge GSD, very gentle and loving nature, but attacks the sleve like a lion.

I really think it depends on the problem if it can be identified.  Deformities need to be euthanized by the vet.  I have kept some alive in my earlier years of breeding and almost everytime that I can remember mama dog would be pushing them away for whatever reason.  So unless you could identify the problem, I say let mother nature takes it course.  If they are ment to be alive then they will probably survive;  however, if that is the case I still do try to feed them extra so they can get at least a good start with a full tummy.  Only kindest thing I could do for them.  Then they have to fight.  Nan

I would always try my best (unless there was an easily identified deformity as crazydog has already said), I really don't think that those puppies should be helped.
In a recent litter I had a puppy with a very short tail (just 2 vertebrae), he was strong, actually the biggest puppy in the litter and he survived 3 weeks only then did I realize that he couldn't stand or walk, only bunny hop or drag his body around trying to keep up with his siblings, on a vet check he also had a spinal deformity and had to be PTS. I gave him chance to survive and in the end it didn't help, once again it broke my heart to let him go.
If the puppy was simply a runt I would and always tried to assist with feeding, keeping warm etc but if after a period of time the puppy doesn't rally I would let mum decide because she knows best.

I agree with dogshome9,  I always tried my hardest to give them a fighting chance if only weak or small.  If after a couple days of honest effort I saw no improvement, I would let nature take it's course, that's what happens in the wild, that is nature.  But if an obvious deformity, it would be PTS right away.