I lost my first pup tonight. I'm not sure that had she made it through the night a vet could have done anything for her. She had a pretty nasty ambilical cord that I thought had been taken care of with shaving stick last night when she was born and several applications of antiboitic gell today. I tried a couple drops of caro an hour apart before I even tried to bottle feed. I couldn't get her to bottle feed so (neither in the welping box or out) and she was getting progressively weaker so I tubed her with 1 1/2 cc of espalac and it and some blood came out of the ambilical cord site. She was 460 grams this morning and had lost 10 grams by the time I tubed her. I know I didn't miss the stoumach, as I have tube fed other pups as well as my 24 week old preeme son. I marked the tube with tape etc. I tried to revive her with my breath as well as swinging her like Ed shows on his vidio, nothing worked. I'm pretty sure I couldn't have done anything else and I think she had a defect, there was a web type piece of tissue from the ambilical cord site and her left front foot , nothing really pronounced but somthing was there. I'm really sick about it, this is the best litter I have ever produced. The father is an awsome dog with tons of ability and strong prey and defencive drives and the mother has very nice prey drive both perents have Sch titles and the father has an asr as well. I suspect this is most likely the last litter for both and I hate to loose a femele as I would have kept or fostered all of them. I am planning to let them breed one more time and both since both will be 7 this year. They work well as a team as protection dogs and I would prefer to keep them in that capasity as long as possible. The two of them drove a stranger from my home in April while I was sleeping. The female stood barking in my bedroom door way and the male held barking at my back door where the entry was made. They are both great dogs! loyal to the death to myself and my daughtor and very tolerent of an active 6 year old that want's to dress them up etc. What a waste! to loose a pup that had so much potential!

If anyone can think of somthing else I could have done PLEASE feel free to be critical. I would much rather learn from a mistake than have it happen again.

Thanks for letting me vent!

You did everything you could - it is very frustrating and noone likes to lose a pup, but no matter what you do to try to save them, it is very unusual to save a pup with any sort of defect, especially one that is not nursing on it's own. Efforts to save "fading" puppies usually just result in the puppy living just a little longer, but dying despite all best efforts. You did what you could, sorry for your lost puppy, hopefully the rest of the litter will be everything you hope for.

molly

That is sad, but chances are that there was something wrong with the baby. I have seen several autopsies done on fading pups or pups that the mother rejected adamantly and have seen all sorts of internal defects. Sometimes you can do everything humanly possible and still lose one. It's upsetting, but best just to tell yourself it was probably meant to be.

Thanks for the reassurance. I had alot of hope at first I saved a pup from my last litter that acted the same way. He had no issues being tubed though.