Just as you think this time things are going to be more straightforward, once the puppies were actually here that is, the problems begin. Shadow has a milk infection affecting about half of her teats. She is already on antibiotics so hopefully it will not take too long to clear, but in the meantime there are four pups and only half the number of teats in operation. Add to that the fact that the puppies seem to have diarrhoea, not really badly, but more than you’d like to see at this stage. Then there are the weights. Oh Duchess is doing ok. She has climbed from 512g to 540g. D’Artagnan is doing ok too having gone from 480g to 510g. It’s the other two. Dixie has only gained 12g and Della who was the smallest to begin with, is clearly losing the battle of the teats and has lost 8g so is now only 430g. Our Mistress gave Dixie and Della some time on their own with their mum about 6.30 this morning and will do that at intervals, but she’s also trying to introduce some bottle feeding and so far that really isn’t going very well. She is going to try again with the bottle with them in about half an hour and see if there is any progress. It’s going to be a long day!
Quite apart from that my Mistress needs to help Shadow by expressing the milk from the infected teats to stop them being quite so swollen and hot and to get rid of the infected milk. It will also help them to make more milk which will hopefully be ok for the pups at some point.
I know I wasn’t going to update you again until this evening, but given how things are you’ll be wanting to know what’s happening so I’ll let you know just after lunch.
You can find short stories to read at www.alfiedog.com
Alfie’s Diary – the Book as well as our other books are available HERE