he said, she said

i am freaking out!!!

puppies at this age (15 days old) are so fragile.

when we got the puppies, they were probably about 1.5 weeks old. all they did was eat, sleep, pee, and poo. their eyes and ears had not yet opened so they were blind and deaf. so to eat, they wander toward the nearest heat source and feel around for something that feels like a nipple and produces warm fluids. unfortunately, the thing that most closely resembled mama’s teets was the little boy’s penis! poor guy — his three sisters latched onto him like a hoover and sucked on him until his little weiner was chafed raw. poor little boy =(

so for the past few of days, i separated him from the bunch anytime they were unsupervised. he is healing nicely. yay.

then two days ago, i thought the little boy was dying. he wouldn’t eat at 11pm. when i held him, he just laid limp in my hand. at 2am, he still wouldn’t eat, so i force-fed him a tiny tiny bit. i was really worried, but i was hoping that he was just really sleepy. at 5am he still wouldn’t eat. unfortunately, i was headed to LA for a quick meeting, leaving mike to do the 9am feeding and grace to do the 12pm.

when i landed in LA at 8:30am, i called mike to check in on the babies. he told me that when he checked on them, the little boy was vomiting! oh no! but the great thing is that he regained his strength and his appetite and he ate well the rest of the day. whew!

so this afternoon, i thought we were finally outta the woods. but then, i got a call from one of the other fosters who has pups from the same litter as ours. 2 of her pups were put down this morning, and the 2 others are headed in the same direction. she was calling to give me a heads up because whatever killed them will probably kill our puppies, too. but the crazy thing is our guys were all looking great, all eating like piggies!

the vets thinks that the puppies had canine herpesvirus. apparently, it’s a respiratory infection that is almost always fatal to pups less than 3 weeks old. it acts swiftly, usually causing death within 24-48 hours of the first symptoms. it has a 6-10 day incubation period. there is no cure.

our tan pup has been crying for the past 2 hours non-stop. i don’t want to give up on him, but i don’t want him suffer if he’s not going to make it through the weekend anyway. i don’t know what to do =(

*stressed out* -tribe called quest