Owlet
Well-known member
So I've been pretty absent from the bird community lately (dont worry my fids are safe and happy still with me) and I just wanted to share what's been going on as it's been a pretty big experience for me and I could use any advice I could get.
first I would like to preface that I would very much appreciate it if comments could be kept constructive and informative rather than negative and condescending. The below will be talking about dog breeders and while I am of the opinion that not all breeders are bad some of what I will talk about below is definitely bad and I understand the breeders in general arent always the most liked.
I would also like to warn that theres sensitive material below pertaining to death and just in general not great situations.
Also this ended up being longer than I intended, sorry. It's been a very long past 48 hours.
So recently I have been employed by a dog breeder, let's call her Kathy (not the real name no name givens will be real just for privacy sake) and it's been mostly good. Now Kathy has been slowly taking over another breeders business, we will call this one Trudy. Most of the work is done by Kathy but Trudy still gets a say in what dogs are bred and when. Now I started out by just cleaning up after the puppies, giving them baths, and simple stuff like that but as it was needed she taught me how to draw and give vaccines, microchips, and the likes so I got relatively well versed in the dealings of older puppies. However as of last Saturday another dog gave birth. Now this is where the bad stuff comes into play. We will call this dog Emma. Emma belongs to Trudy so what Trudy says essentially goes with this dog as there are contracts in place. Emma has had 2 litters in the past. The first one didnt go very well. I dont have a lot of details other than that. The 2nd litter also did not go well and I believe out of 6 puppies there were only 2 survivors. If it was my call I would have had her spayed the second the puppies didnt need her anymore. However that didnt happen for reasons unknown to me. Now, one litter with complications is worrying enough but with a proven lineage of tested and dnad dogs it's easy to brush it aside as a one time deal and just a bad litter. If it happens twice you know it's likely the dog and even with the slim possibility of it just being a coincidence it's best to retire that dog asap. So please can someone explain to me why Trudy decided to breed Emma again? We had these puppies born on Saturday and there were 7 embryos in total. 1 was mummified, 2 died at birth. The average birth weight for this breed should be minimum of 150g but these puppies ranges from the low end of 150g to 50g I started intensively caring for these puppies on the monday following (Kathy had been prior) and it wasnt great. The puppies were losing weight, and Emma was a hot mess to say the least. The puppies were barely nursing at best and even then it wasnt nearly enough to sustain them so we had been tube feeding them which I was officially taught how to do today and did every hour for 10 hours straight. Now we run into another problem of the moms milk beginning to dry up. We tried milking her to keep it flowing but regardless of our efforts within a day she was pretty much dry. Which raises questions of other problems as despite getting supplements out of the wazoo she was showing signs of calcium deficiency so I dont think she could even produce milk. On top of that, overnight theres a very real possibility that Emma had killed the smallest of the babies. Its unclear if he passed naturally or if Emma had a play in it but it wasnt a pleasant site for Kathy to find, I'll leave it at that. In addition Emma seemed to have extreme anxiety issues when it came to the pups. If you've worked with mother dogs you know they're to a degree very protective and clingy to their babies especially the first few days but this was very much next level. She was obsessively licking them to the point of bright red raw skin and she would nibble at them too which is it's own entire problem. If you so much as touched the puppies she would get extremely worried (not aggressive) and honestly i dont think this dog has actively slept since Friday. And today she began what I can only assume is rejecting the puppies. She will still obsessively clean them but she will not cuddle with them and when they're crying for her she just whines and runs in circles and looks at me expectantly.
So as a refresher we have premature babies, a mom with some sort of calcium problem as well as what I can only assume is anxiety, and poor motherly skills as well as a possible killing connect to her. To say the least it's not a great mix. So for the past 48 hours during my time there (a total of 19 hours now) I have spent sitting in the whelping box actively monitoring her, feeding the puppies, keeping them warm, and pottying them. The most Emma would do is lick them occassionally but for the most part she just wanted attention from me (when yesterday she wanted little to do with me and would just be with her puppies) but in short almost 100% of the puppies care is from me (or Kathy when I'm not there) and 0% from Emma. This comes into play later.
So today I spent a lot of time milking the mother of the remaining litter as her puppies are on solids and dont need it as much, drawing it up into syringes, and preparing to tube feed the puppies throughout the day. I spent a lot of time trying to coerce the tube down their throat to feed them and I spent a lot of time wiping their bums and trying to stimulate them to go potty. I would also like to note that on Monday within 30 minutes of me being there a puppy seemed to die in my hands. I'm still unsure of exactly what happened but he went absolutely rigid and wasnt breathing. We were able to revive him and he was okay. I can only assume he had some kind of seizure because he had a similar episode later in the day (again we revived him) so in short it's been very emotionally draining. There was only 1 puppy I was relatively confident would survive but low and behold all 3 of the remaining puppies have been gaining weight today. (thanks to my assistance. I'm not trying to brag its just important to note for later)
With everything going on we contacted the vet to see what they had to say especially pertaining to keeping the puppies with the mom or pulling them. The vet suggested taking them away especially after last night's incident. He suggested we tube feed for another few days and then transition onto bottle feeding (puppies are premature, their suckle reflex isnt as strong as it should be currently) and then get them on gruel and solids as soon as possible and at some point introduce a stable and proven mother to provide to their social needs. we felt like this was a good plan so we contacted Trudy about the plan and, i had to walk away during this conversation. Trudy without any hesitation said "if you want to remove Emma from the puppies you should euthanize the puppies" and we were all blown away, like excuse you no that will NOT be happening. Her reasoning was that they wont survive without a mother. Problem is, I'm their mother now and they're doing just dandy under my care. 2 of the 3 puppies actually recognize me as their mother now and will cuddle with me and seek me out for their needs as opposed to trying to seek out Emma. We tried to explain this to her but she was insistent that the puppies wouldn't survive and to just euthanize them if we weren't going to leave them with Emma even though Emma really does nothing for the puppies as previously stated. It was at this point I walked away (and plotted kidnapping the babies) but Kathy continued talking to her and eventually they came to the conclusion that we can do as we please even if she doesn't agree with it. So I guess that works. As of now we have decided to keep the puppies with Emma under supervision and crate Emma at night so she doesnt have access to the puppies outside of supervised times.
Now we intend to send Emma back to her guardian home (and spayed as soon as the vet says its safe) but then we are left with the situation of what happens with the puppies. Safe to say we will NOT be euthanizing them however they will need round the clock hourly care. Kathy is on the older side and it's not easy for her to get up throughout the night and she has a lot of other things she needs to handle so it would be very difficult if not impossible for her to give these puppies all the care they need. I on the other hand am young and barely sleep as is. So we are contemplating the idea of me bringing the puppies home and caring for them like that. Now I'm fairly confident I can do it but theres also the fact I've been doing this for 3 weeks i am less than experienced. I have lots of knowledge but very little hands on experience. So heres where I am largely asking for advice, I will have the support of Kathy and vets and any other resources. I will be given the supplies needed to properly take care of them and it feels like everything is reasonably in place but I do not want to possibly miss something and have it result in a worse case scenario. So please if you have any experience raising baby animals (specifically preemie puppies) please please just tell me everything no matter how small you think it may be. I do NOT want to miss anything. I have grown rather attached to these babies and having the little one pass last night was painful. I know nature may take its course but I want to do everything possible to let these puppies survive.
And finally I do have pictures of the babies but they are kind of hard to look at due to the nature of the situation despite not showing anything gruesome, just puppies. Let me know if yall want to see them and I can figure out something
first I would like to preface that I would very much appreciate it if comments could be kept constructive and informative rather than negative and condescending. The below will be talking about dog breeders and while I am of the opinion that not all breeders are bad some of what I will talk about below is definitely bad and I understand the breeders in general arent always the most liked.
I would also like to warn that theres sensitive material below pertaining to death and just in general not great situations.
Also this ended up being longer than I intended, sorry. It's been a very long past 48 hours.
So recently I have been employed by a dog breeder, let's call her Kathy (not the real name no name givens will be real just for privacy sake) and it's been mostly good. Now Kathy has been slowly taking over another breeders business, we will call this one Trudy. Most of the work is done by Kathy but Trudy still gets a say in what dogs are bred and when. Now I started out by just cleaning up after the puppies, giving them baths, and simple stuff like that but as it was needed she taught me how to draw and give vaccines, microchips, and the likes so I got relatively well versed in the dealings of older puppies. However as of last Saturday another dog gave birth. Now this is where the bad stuff comes into play. We will call this dog Emma. Emma belongs to Trudy so what Trudy says essentially goes with this dog as there are contracts in place. Emma has had 2 litters in the past. The first one didnt go very well. I dont have a lot of details other than that. The 2nd litter also did not go well and I believe out of 6 puppies there were only 2 survivors. If it was my call I would have had her spayed the second the puppies didnt need her anymore. However that didnt happen for reasons unknown to me. Now, one litter with complications is worrying enough but with a proven lineage of tested and dnad dogs it's easy to brush it aside as a one time deal and just a bad litter. If it happens twice you know it's likely the dog and even with the slim possibility of it just being a coincidence it's best to retire that dog asap. So please can someone explain to me why Trudy decided to breed Emma again? We had these puppies born on Saturday and there were 7 embryos in total. 1 was mummified, 2 died at birth. The average birth weight for this breed should be minimum of 150g but these puppies ranges from the low end of 150g to 50g I started intensively caring for these puppies on the monday following (Kathy had been prior) and it wasnt great. The puppies were losing weight, and Emma was a hot mess to say the least. The puppies were barely nursing at best and even then it wasnt nearly enough to sustain them so we had been tube feeding them which I was officially taught how to do today and did every hour for 10 hours straight. Now we run into another problem of the moms milk beginning to dry up. We tried milking her to keep it flowing but regardless of our efforts within a day she was pretty much dry. Which raises questions of other problems as despite getting supplements out of the wazoo she was showing signs of calcium deficiency so I dont think she could even produce milk. On top of that, overnight theres a very real possibility that Emma had killed the smallest of the babies. Its unclear if he passed naturally or if Emma had a play in it but it wasnt a pleasant site for Kathy to find, I'll leave it at that. In addition Emma seemed to have extreme anxiety issues when it came to the pups. If you've worked with mother dogs you know they're to a degree very protective and clingy to their babies especially the first few days but this was very much next level. She was obsessively licking them to the point of bright red raw skin and she would nibble at them too which is it's own entire problem. If you so much as touched the puppies she would get extremely worried (not aggressive) and honestly i dont think this dog has actively slept since Friday. And today she began what I can only assume is rejecting the puppies. She will still obsessively clean them but she will not cuddle with them and when they're crying for her she just whines and runs in circles and looks at me expectantly.
So as a refresher we have premature babies, a mom with some sort of calcium problem as well as what I can only assume is anxiety, and poor motherly skills as well as a possible killing connect to her. To say the least it's not a great mix. So for the past 48 hours during my time there (a total of 19 hours now) I have spent sitting in the whelping box actively monitoring her, feeding the puppies, keeping them warm, and pottying them. The most Emma would do is lick them occassionally but for the most part she just wanted attention from me (when yesterday she wanted little to do with me and would just be with her puppies) but in short almost 100% of the puppies care is from me (or Kathy when I'm not there) and 0% from Emma. This comes into play later.
So today I spent a lot of time milking the mother of the remaining litter as her puppies are on solids and dont need it as much, drawing it up into syringes, and preparing to tube feed the puppies throughout the day. I spent a lot of time trying to coerce the tube down their throat to feed them and I spent a lot of time wiping their bums and trying to stimulate them to go potty. I would also like to note that on Monday within 30 minutes of me being there a puppy seemed to die in my hands. I'm still unsure of exactly what happened but he went absolutely rigid and wasnt breathing. We were able to revive him and he was okay. I can only assume he had some kind of seizure because he had a similar episode later in the day (again we revived him) so in short it's been very emotionally draining. There was only 1 puppy I was relatively confident would survive but low and behold all 3 of the remaining puppies have been gaining weight today. (thanks to my assistance. I'm not trying to brag its just important to note for later)
With everything going on we contacted the vet to see what they had to say especially pertaining to keeping the puppies with the mom or pulling them. The vet suggested taking them away especially after last night's incident. He suggested we tube feed for another few days and then transition onto bottle feeding (puppies are premature, their suckle reflex isnt as strong as it should be currently) and then get them on gruel and solids as soon as possible and at some point introduce a stable and proven mother to provide to their social needs. we felt like this was a good plan so we contacted Trudy about the plan and, i had to walk away during this conversation. Trudy without any hesitation said "if you want to remove Emma from the puppies you should euthanize the puppies" and we were all blown away, like excuse you no that will NOT be happening. Her reasoning was that they wont survive without a mother. Problem is, I'm their mother now and they're doing just dandy under my care. 2 of the 3 puppies actually recognize me as their mother now and will cuddle with me and seek me out for their needs as opposed to trying to seek out Emma. We tried to explain this to her but she was insistent that the puppies wouldn't survive and to just euthanize them if we weren't going to leave them with Emma even though Emma really does nothing for the puppies as previously stated. It was at this point I walked away (and plotted kidnapping the babies) but Kathy continued talking to her and eventually they came to the conclusion that we can do as we please even if she doesn't agree with it. So I guess that works. As of now we have decided to keep the puppies with Emma under supervision and crate Emma at night so she doesnt have access to the puppies outside of supervised times.
Now we intend to send Emma back to her guardian home (and spayed as soon as the vet says its safe) but then we are left with the situation of what happens with the puppies. Safe to say we will NOT be euthanizing them however they will need round the clock hourly care. Kathy is on the older side and it's not easy for her to get up throughout the night and she has a lot of other things she needs to handle so it would be very difficult if not impossible for her to give these puppies all the care they need. I on the other hand am young and barely sleep as is. So we are contemplating the idea of me bringing the puppies home and caring for them like that. Now I'm fairly confident I can do it but theres also the fact I've been doing this for 3 weeks i am less than experienced. I have lots of knowledge but very little hands on experience. So heres where I am largely asking for advice, I will have the support of Kathy and vets and any other resources. I will be given the supplies needed to properly take care of them and it feels like everything is reasonably in place but I do not want to possibly miss something and have it result in a worse case scenario. So please if you have any experience raising baby animals (specifically preemie puppies) please please just tell me everything no matter how small you think it may be. I do NOT want to miss anything. I have grown rather attached to these babies and having the little one pass last night was painful. I know nature may take its course but I want to do everything possible to let these puppies survive.
And finally I do have pictures of the babies but they are kind of hard to look at due to the nature of the situation despite not showing anything gruesome, just puppies. Let me know if yall want to see them and I can figure out something
