Well although things had started to turn round in the morning yesterday, the real answer was in the advice from our friends who breed Entlebuchers in other countries. More than anything it shows the power of the internet. My Mistress put out an appeal at 9pm yesterday and had detailed answers in less than an hour. It gave her time to edit the Tesco order to add the new ingredients we needed and have it delivered a little after 12 hours after the cry for help. The advice was perfect. The new recipe has gone down a storm and means my Mistress no longer has to bottle feed, but can feed all five at once. They say the proof of the pudding is in the eating, but in our case it is in the weighing. Either our puppies are now severely constipated, but that doesn’t seem likely as they seem content and happy or we at last have got decent weight gains, which we haven’t really had in the last week. At 8pm last night Beethoven was 1630g, an increase of 70g on the morning. Boadicea was 1650, 80g up on the morning and 50g up on yesterday. Bumble had been totally making up for lost time and weighed 1740g, no less than 150g up on yesterday morning. Bossanova was 1820g, an increase of 140g and Britannia was 1830g, an increase of 110g.
On Britannia’s behalf I would just like to set the record straight. She isn’t the largest because she has pushed anyone out of the way. In fact this afternoon at one point she seemed to be feeding one of the others. I think she just got lucky on which teat she got and because she was stronger managed to carry on doing better. We have never seen her push any of the others out of the way and she is just the right sort of weight while some of the others are still struggling. She is just lovely. In fact so far there isn’t one in this litter that has shown the least sign of dominance.
I’ve told you about the puppies but I mustn’t forget Shadow. She is eating again. My Mistress is giving her a little food every couple of hours. She’d like more but my Mistress wants to see her safely on the road to recovery. The only bad news is that she has wind again. She does have a little more milk, so she gives the puppies a top up feed after they have had their new gruel.
Now the puppies are getting stronger again they need feeding a little less often and managed 2 ½ hour intervals yesterday. My Mistress will move them to 3 hourly today unless they demand food any more often than that. With any luck they will get to 4 hourly in only a few days’ time.
Alfie Dog with a little help from Rosemary J Kind alfie@alfiedog.me.uk
Alfie’s Diary – the Book is available at Amazon UK –https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00583ZGSA
You can find short stories to read at www.alfiedog.com