Separated at birth:
Knut the infamous abandoned polar bear cub born at the Berlin Zoo – and now apparently named Flocke or Snowflake…
… and our own Solo puppy.
Not only do they look alike, but both –
* have moms who are uninterested in raising them (altho’ Solo’s didn’t try to chomp on his head)
* had to be bottle fed
* had siblings who died
* are extreme examples of cute-i-tude
I rest my case.
Solo is almost at two pounds, finally. He hit a sort of plateau when he was sick a week ago, but he’s been making up for lost time the last few days. He’s gone from eating just under an ounce per feeding to an ounce and a half and change – and this morning, he ate a full two ounces. Time to re-try the pablum!
Sailor just adores him – well, she adores licking him, at any rate. Tessa has given him a few cursory sniffs, but remains steadfast in her adherence to her “I don’t babysit the great grandkids” policy. Can’t say I blame her – she did her time in the puppy trenches.
Here are some photos of Solo at three weeks —
http://www.flickr.com/photos
There are a few in there of Dexter, as well
Solo also has his very first video, mainly consisting of his being adorable and fuzzy.
You can find it on YouTube, or embedded after the cut.
Like a lot of people in Ontario, we suffered through some crazy windstorms yesterday, resulting in a day of sporadic power outages. From about five in the morning on, our power was on and off throughout the day, causing me some major inconvenience, and not a small amount of worry over keeping my puppies warm. With Bunny’s kids in one room, Solo in another, and the balance of the dogs split between the dog room and our family room, there was a lot of space to be kept warm, and just one airtight wood stove to heat it.
Thankfully, Sean had the foresight to purchase a gasoline generator a few months ago, in anticipation of days just like this. Hooked up to space heaters, it was sufficient to keep the entire house warm, and the pups content, if not thrilled about the darker than usual rooms. I’ve never been more thankful that we heat our house primarily with wood than I was yesterday, although I’m thinking of investing in a few kerosene heaters as back up. After all, people in the Muskoka area are still without power, and might not get it back until Saturday. That’s a long time to run a generator, and a lot of gas used. We have a pond out back for utility grade water, but we just noticed yesterday that our pump is hard wired into the house, and so can’t be run off of the generator. We’re going to invest in a dozen or so really big bottles of drinking water. After all, Sean and I can use up the bottled drinks in the house, but the dogs aren’t as keen on Diet Dr. Pepper.
The entire situation was made more hectic because it was the day Harley and Izzy were due to depart for their new homes. Lauren, Harley’s new mom and adoptive mom of our Lola, was flying in from New York City, and Sean had agreed to meet her at the airport to save her driving the five hour round trip to our house. Lauren had agreed to carry both Izzy and Harley back on the return flight, dropping Izzy off to her new mom in New York City. Susanna would then fly her back home to Texas the next day. That’s a lot of planning, none of which could be bumped just because our power was out. I had to make a lot of frantic phone calling to make sure everything was still on track, complicated by the fact our cordless phones weren’t working with the power out, and my cell was completely drained. Thankfully, Sean bought a new cell just before Christmas. Lesson learned – buy an old fashioned plug in phone, in case of future power outages.
So, Izzy and Harley are gone, off to their new families. The house is awfully quiet, and poor Dexter seems a little bit bereft. You’d think he’d be grateful, since Izzy spent the last few weeks terrorizing him at every given opportunity. Sean has taken their leaving rather hard – after all, this is the first time he’s raised up pups, only to see them leave for new homes. He felt a special bond with Harley, who enjoyed sitting on Sean’s feet when he found the rowdy grown up dogs a bit too overwhelming. Poor Sean. He just learned that every litter breaks your heart just a tiny bit when they go.
Solo is coming along swimmingly, and has finally reached the stage where he seems like a ‘real’ puppy. That’s the stage where this tiny little bundle of fur suddenly develops a real personality, and sense of consciousness. You look at them, and they are looking back, not just gazing unfocusedly into the ether. Solo has a vocabulary of little puppy growls and barks, and did his first puppy mouth war with me. He’s breaking his baby teeth, and likes to chew on the nipple of his bottle. He looks more and more like a baby polar bear cub.
Unfortunately, Mae is pretty thoroughly bored with Solo. She’ll give him a cursory lick now and then, but other than that they’re rather like two polite roommates sharing an apartment. Solo stays on one side of the pool, and Mae on the other. This disinterest on her part has given Sailor a new hobby – licking the puppy. After I finish feeding him, I place him in front of Sailor on a blanket, and she spends the next twenty minutes acting like a canine car wash. She licks him up one side, then down the other, and repeats the process for good measure. Solo gives off little baby growls when he’s had enough, but usually he ends up falling asleep on his back mid lick session. Sailor has been a veteran puppy licker since she first climbed into her mom’s whelping box to tend to Tessa’s new litter, and she’s been at it ever since. This is a photo of her licking her half brothers and sisters, shortly before Tessa told her to shove off and get a new hobby.
Sean took some pictures of the pups before they left yesterday, and some photos of Dexter settling in with the brindle bunch today.
See them on Flickr, or below.
Well, Solo is feeling a bit better. Thanks to the advice I received from some list members, I spoke to my veterinarian, and we switched him over to Zithromax on Friday. It seems to have really worked – his check up Saturday morning confirmed his lungs are MUCH less congested, and much ‘drier’ sounding, although he does now have rhinitis (a nasal infection, similar to a cold).
Luckily, he’s still managed to gain a bit of weight throughout all of this, likely because I’ve been getting up every two hours to feed him, then staggering back to nap until the alarm goes off again. I think as of today I might try stretching that out to every four hours or so, since if I don’t get some REAL sleep soon I’m going to go utterly crazy.
This is the first time since Thursday or so I’ve been on the computer, so now I get to wade through nine hundred piles of email…
Bunny’s pups go home next week – Harley to New York City, and Izzy to Texas. I shot some new video this morning, and there’s a scene in there where Tessa is defending Mr. Monkey, everyone’s favorite stuffed animal, from the puppies. They wait until she’s asleep, then stage a “Mission Impossible” style theft of him that involves sloooowly climbing over the bottom shelf of the bookcase.
I’m going to miss the mayhem they cause, although I’m pretty sure Tessa is already packing their suitcases and pushing them towards the door.
You can see the video here –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23935blK1l8
Or it’s embedded after the cut.
I woke up this morning at six am to give Solo his morning feeding, and found him in a state of distress. He was listless, wheezing, and had milk coming out of his nose. A quick inspection indicated his chest sounded congested, and his energy level was depressed. This was a 180° change from his demeanor of last night, and I knew pretty much right away what the problem was – aspiration pneumonia.
Aspiration pneumonia occurs when fluids have gotten into the lungs. In this case, I likely allowed Solo to overeat during his last feeding of the night. He vomited, and some of the fluid got into his lungs. He now faces a chance of developing a bacterial infection from the fluid in his lungs.
I had him into the car, and on his way to our vet office as soon as they were opened. Since I don’t function my best with just five hours sleep, I managed to leave the house without my wallet, which wouldn’t have been an issue if I hadn’t stopped for gas on the way. This was one of those times I was grateful to live in a small town, as they allowed me to leave to go back home and grab my wallet, instead of just calling the cops.
Finally arriving at the Vet’s office, Dr. Gomez did a thorough check on Solo, and confirmed he has ‘wet’ sounding lungs – and that we’d caught it right away, thankfully. Solo was dehydrated, so he received 30 mls of fluid subcutaneously (which he didn’t enjoy in the least). He’s now on Clavamox, to stave off possible infection.
He’s also back on every two hour feeding, with the goal of getting smaller amounts of food into him, more frequently, instead of allowing him to gorge every four hours.
Goodbye, sleep, hello alarm clock.
If he regurgitates again, I’m going to have to take the plunge and start tube feeding him, and tube feeding scares the beejesus out of me. I’ll do it, however, if it will save his life.
I find it ironic that on the same morning I was racing around trying to save my single surviving puppy’s life, someone was sending me the following email:
Can you give me some advice on how I become a French Bull Dog breeder? I want to make some part time money and I really like dogs. I had a litter from my cocker spaniel two years ago and it seems pretty easy.
I haven’t bothered to answer them yet. Some days, answering questions like this can’t be done without copious amounts of swearing and tears.
Here’s a video demonstration of tube feeding, for those who’ve never seen it done.
Carol