I wonder if anyone can help me - I am getting desperate!

My bitch had a caesarian on Monday and had settled down with the puppies after 24 hours. However, she is refusing to eat.

I have been to the veterinarian who has checked her for everything, he says there is nothing wrong with her, no infection, no eclampsia, nothing. He has given her vitamin injections, calcium and painkiller and anti-nausea injections and seen her everyday. Nothing.

She does have a very noisy stomach, since before the birth, and keeps trying to eat grass, he says to stop her. She did have some loose stools but is now ok.

I am syringing puppy milk with egg and some syrup into her twice a day - vet's idea - and the puppies have lots of milk and doing fine.

I have tried her on all her most favourite food, nothing.

Can anyone please help? Thank you.

Sue
from England

Hi Sue, Welcome to the boards, I wish you were here under better circumstances. I've got a load of questions. Please indulge me, I'm just trying to get a mental picture of what's going on.

I guess my first question is how is she acting? Does she seem frantic or lethargic with her litter? Is this her first litter? How experienced are you at recognizing off behaviors in bitches after whelping vs the spectrum of batty bitch behavior after whelping?

When and where are you offering her food? How does she react when you offer her food? Are you exercising her and if so for how long? Are you offering her food after exercise? Is it in a room without the litter or with the litter?

Is there anything in her environment that could make her feel insecure? Loose dogs? Dogs in crates? High traffic area? Noises? You watching her? How is your whelp box set up?

There is possibly a lot going on. It could be stress throwing her off food, it could be medical from the c section, hormones making her feel ill, or it could be an environmental thing. We need more info.

Thank you Melissa.

She is acting very well with the litter, neither frantic nor lethargic. She is feeding them well, cleaning them up and cuddling them. She just won't eat. I have tried her in her den, and away from it.

We have been back to the vet's again today and she has a high white blood count and a very noisy tummy, but everything else is normal, including her calcium, thank God. The vet has put her on anti-nausea, appetite encouragers, painkiller, high dose antibiotic and stomach calming medicine. (BTW she is a cavalier and not an alsatian, I came here to ask you for help because this is such a lovely site and Ed seems so caring with the dogs and so beautifully free with his information. I hope that is OK.)

She is my only dog and is in a heated and ventilated room on her own with the puppies; in fact it is my study and she is very happy in here. It is quiet and undisturbed and I have made her a den in the corner which is quite dark and which she comes and goes from very happily.

She is not herself, can I put it like that. Her joie de vivre has disappeared and although she loves the puppies and cares for them like a very good mother should, she doesn't have her usual energy and happiness, even away from them. The puppies are gaining weight well and seem fine.

I have just managed to get another half pint of the mix into her and she is sleeping quietly with the puppies now.

I wrote because I just wondered if anyone had ever had anything like this themselves, and thank you so much Melissa for your reply.

Sue

If she cleans up after the pups well, I would try putting small amounts of food in amongst the pups. Like tiny bits of hamburger, raw.
Often, a bitch subsists for several days on the nutrition derived from eating afterbirth during whelping. With a C-section I'm assuming this did not happen.
I suspect that she feels sick from the anaesthesia, pain from the incision. Antibiotics are great to control uterine infection and mastitis, great that these conditions have been ruled out.
I'd let her alone as much as possible, tease her to eat anyway that you can. I bet soon she will be gobbling up everything in sight. She may just need some recovery time.

Thank you Betty,if she wasn't nursing the puppies I would fast her for a good 24 hours and see from there. However, I am worried about the milk drying up, especially as I have had a fading puppy which I managed to bring round by putting her on the nipple every hour. She is now OK, and much stronger. It has been one difficult whelp this time! Poor old Lily, she is such a lovely dog.

A fast will screw stuff up. Instead try a 30 minute walk to clear her brain up, then offer her some tasty food, then put her back with her litter. It was the only thing I found that worked well with my papillon after she whelped her last litter and was feeling a little queasy. Part 1 was making her get physically in the zone, part 2 was getting her mind out of it's hormone clogged insanity with a little walking, ball, or whatever floats her exercise boat.

It's important - vitally so that you continue to supplement calcium until she's back on food to prevent hypocalcemia. It looks a lot like crashing blood sugar symptoms in toy breed puppies but is a e vet emergency for a lactating bitch.

Thanks Melissa, I will try a walk. They have found raised white blood cells in her blood work, but no other symptoms at all, apart from the lethargy and the lack of appetite. Today she has some discharge at last from her rear end, dark in colour, but they have ruled out pyometra as she has no temperature raise, no pain on examination, no swelling of the womb. In fact no pain anywhere. I am still syringing food into her.

Hi Sue, I hope things improve today.

It's not unusual for there to be discharge for up to a week. As long as it's still in the red to clear spectrum I wouldn't worry too much. If it goes black, yellow, or green then it's a sign of a bad infection.

The high white count is concerning. The not eating thing is going to get critical pretty quickly. It's been a full week by my count. What is your vet saying?

As much as I hate, hate, hate the idea after a full week I'd strongly consider having the vet tube feed her. She fits the profile for nutritional support action since it's been over 5 days and she has increased nutritional requirements. Puppy formula just isn't going to cut it for an adult dog for another three weeks.

I would also discuss with your vet how much longer it's a good idea for this girl to continue with this litter as their nutritional supply. Bottle feeding a litter is a pain but... reality being what it is the thought needs to be entertained if your goal is to save her and her litter.

I think something may be "up" if your dog is still not eating and
has a hi WBC. She should be eating now. I'd suspect some complication related to the Csection. Perhaps retained afterbirth hooked in the suture line.....Kinked small bowel, these sorts of things would be on my mind had I been the surgeon.
Is she urinating freely? Vomiting? Drinking fluids?

Does the discharge smell? I think the color can be anything, so long as it does not smell. Discharge is good, it means the uterus is alive and beginning to push
retained dead tissues out.
I'd second everything Melissa says. Get a routine going: walk, small ball hamburger pushed down her throat, go see puppies. Couple hours with pups, repeat. If she begins to vomit you will have to take other measures.

Thank you very much Betty and Melissa. We are in the vet's office every morning at present! The discharge does not smell, is dark red and is the first discharge I have seen - which is why closed pyometra was on their minds I think.

She is drinking fluids, not vomiting, urinating and has normal faeces now, she did have some loose stools but it is now normal. I have managed to get some convalescent food into her, also some raw beef cut very small, some Caesar dog food and syringing Whelpie with an egg yolk and some syrup. Everything I have to open her mouth and put the food in and after a while she will swallow it, but starts by dropping it out of her mouth.

She is having high dose antibiotics, anti-nausea pills, appetite encouraging pills, painkillers and stomach calming medicine. Even with all that, all I can get is her to swallow small amounts.

The vet says until there are more symptoms all we can do is manage it as much as possible. They are all puzzled in the practice, in a very House type way (the television show?), and I am sure spend much time discussing it. I think the antibiotics are masking whatever is wrong and keeping her temperature down, but this has been roundly discarded as a theory.

The problem is that this all started before she had the caesarian. I took the lack of interest in food and drop in temperature as a sign of imminent labour (on the Friday) and watched her carefully over the weekend - there was some panting but nothing heavy - and by the Monday (day 62 - cavaliers usually whelp on the 59th day) took her to the vet's where they did a scan, thought they saw one large puppy and advised a caesar. By this time her temperature was up to 102.