A heartbreaking, tragic disaster...one month ago an on

Puppies have finally come!!...and some have left.

As you all know, Nova is (obviously) pregnant.  Or at least she was.  She finally whelped January 29.  I know that this update is late, but I've been sooo busy as you'll see.  

I went out at 2:30 AM on the 29th (a Wednesday morning) and when I was nearing the kennel I heard something whimpering.  I knew that Nova had had puppies, so I ran to the kennel and opened the door to find...

Nova was laying on one side of the kennel.  One dead puppy was laying in front of the door, and another dead one was in the middle of the floor.  There was also a dead one that Nova was laying on, although I didn't know it at the time.  One alive but half dead puppy was by Nova's front paw, and another alive pup was wedged between her back legs.  I ran to the house and told Mom.  After speedily getting dressed, I ran back outside to try to get the pups to suckle.

I laid the two dead puppies next to Nova.  They were cold and stiff.  I tried to get the live ones to suck, but they were too cold.  Dad soon came out, and I carried the live puppies while Dad coaxed Nova into the house.

I immediately milked some of Nova's teats.  As milk was coming out, I again tried to get the puppies to suck.  They were so cold, though, that we had to wrap them in warm towels and dry them with a hair dryer.  After a while of working, I got one puppy (the one that had been between her legs) to nurse, as this puppy was warmer in the beginning and more vigorous than the other one.  I named him Kavik.  We had also frozen goat milk this year, and Mom mixed some with an egg to squirt with a syringe down their throats.

After Dad left for work, I continued to work over the puppies for several hours until suddenly Nova had another one.  I immediately helped Nova dry it off.  It was quite vigorous, and I soon got it sucking.  I named it White Fang.

About 4 hours later Nova had another puppy!  It was pretty vigorous, but couldn't figure out how to suck.  I forced it on a teat and it sucked a bit, but later continued to nuzzle and wriggle around without atcually latching on a teat.  Eventually he figured it out.  I named this one Wolfgang.

The first puppy that I got sucking, Kavik, and White Fang were nursing fiercly by now, and were doing well.

My real concern was for the one that had been born oustide with Kavik.  As Kavik had been between Nova's legs when we found him, he had been able to keep warm.  The other one, which we ended up temporarily calling Dopey, had been lying a little bit away from Nova, and was cold.  This might have been part of the reason that he was so sluggish.  I think something was wrong with him though, as he was always gasping for air through his mouth.  He also couldn't keep his tongue in his mouth.  After doing some reasearch online, one site said that a puppy could be sluggish because of low blood sugar levels.  I didn't know if this was true, but thought that it wouldn't hurt to give what the site said to do a try.  Following the directions of 3 tablespoons of water to 1 tablespoon of sugar, I used a syringe to squirt some down his throat every 15-20 minutes, but to no avail.  He died around 10:00 in the morning.

I went out to the kennel to see the two dead ones.  I found another dead one that had been right where Nova was laying.

Dock buried them all in the pasture.

It was a horrible day.  Needless to say I cried a little bit about the dead ones.

Nova had a total of 7 puppies, with four dead and two alive.  I had sexed the dead ones, and thought that they were all boys.

 Dad got a kitty pool from someone and we put it in my room with newspapers for Nova and the puppies.

All week Kavik, White Fang, and Wolfgang did well.  They were very vigorous, and were sucking well.  On Saturday ( February 8th) I noticed that White Fang was acting a bit sluggish.  Sunday I knew something was definitely wrong.  He was limp and listless, and wasn't sucking.  I brought him to Mom and she saw that something was wrong with him as well.  I heated up goat milk and syringed him all day, and even got him to lap a little bit out of the dish.  The last several times he actually barfed the milk up, and he also had diarrhea.  Monday or Tuesday (February 10 or 11) night I woke up and heard him screaming, making a whistling, gurgling noise.  He died that morning (the 10 or 11).

We can't figure out what made him turn like that, unless it was because he didn't get any milk.  Or he could have had parvo, else why would he be barfing and have diarrhea?

At about 2.5 weeks Nova dried up completely.  From them up to present they have been living soley off wet dog food, powdered lamb replacer milk and dry dog food.

We suspect that the three dead ones in the kennel had died for lack of milk and warmth (with the one possibly being squished).

Dad and Mom have had many litters of puppies years ago with Border Collies, and the mothers never needed any help and were good moms.  They never had such a bad death rate.  I mean, out of 7 puppies 5 are dead?!!  Even if we had been right there with Nova in the beginning, after she had them we probably would have went into the house and the puppies would have died anyways.


Then last week we were rubbing Wolfgang's tummy when Dock said that he looked different than Kavik.  I told Mom that I had noticed that too.  It ends up that Wolfgang is a girl!  I named her Sapphire.

Which brings us to the fact that Nova is a horrible mom.  Several days after they were born Nova started lacking in interest with them.  Also not all of her teats were making milk. Only about 5 teats are were making milk.  She then quit getting into the kitty pool with them, and when we locked her in my room with them she started hiding under the bed!!  The only reason we didn't get rid of her is because she is a pet.  Needless to say there are very bad feelings about her at present...

Also when they were about a week old Nova snuck into the kitty pool with a piece of food without us knowing.  We suddenly heard a pup screaming.  I raced in there.  Nova was racing around the bedroom with wild eyes.  I looked over the puppies and didn't see anything wrong.  A couple days later I saw that Sapphire's (then Wolfgang) tail about 1/4 of the way from the tip had been broke, and was shriveling up.  It soon fell off.  Now we have a puppy with a slightly bobbed tail! 

(These pictures were taken when they were about 2.5 weeks old)


Both puppies.  Kavik is the one on the left and Sapphire on the right.

Kavik

Sapphire

Her tail, shriveling up

And now, with the tip fallen off.

Nova with them

Duke had massive dental work done.  We had noticed that when we first got him that one of his front top fangs was missing.  The gum was all black.  When he stopped eating his dog food we took him to the vet, and sure enough, that missing tooth wasn't completely missing.  After coming to pick him up after his dental work, we learned that the fang had broke off.  Inside of Duke's mouth was the root of the tooth.  The gum had started rotting but hadn't turned into infection yet.  If we had not taken him in, though, it would have turned into infection and went into his brain.  He would have died.  They extracted the tooth root, which they let us have.  The vet stated that we would have a different dog, as Duke had been permanently in pain.  He is more energetic (if that is possible.  He can run all day and still be bursting with energy.  I joked and said that Duke's battery is never more than 1/16 empty.  If the day ever comes that Duke is lazy I'll know something's wrong!) and always happy to see me (which he has always been, lol).  I'm so glad my Dukey-boy will live many more years yet!


On the pasture behind us that the horses graze on, there are several old pick-up cabs sitting around.  This fall we smelt skunk and set a live trap.  A skunk did get caught in it, and was "disposed" of.  Now we smelt skunk again and again put the live trap out (with cat food, of course).  I was running behind the trap with the dogs and didn't know that a skunk had been caught in there.  I suddently noticed that the dogs were gone and skunk was in the air.  Wayne and Junior were standing about 10 feet away from the skunk staring, while Duke was rubbing all over the cage!! City slick didn't know what he was doing.  After about 10 seconds he raced off into the pond and started thrashing around.  Sadly, he had found out too late that skunks stink!  He reeked of skunk for nearly two weeks.

Duke running

Wayne and Junior got their butts shaved by me in mid February.  Junior had started to have diarrhea and it got his butt hair all nasty (this happens every year.  Here is the link to last years shaving incident).  Pictures of that later.

Them some accquaintances of ours told us that they had "a two year old 1/2 Jersey 1/2 Holstien milk cow that was not pregnant".  We decided that we would take her.

The day before we were supposed to pick her up they said "actually, we think that she is pregnant!"  We took her home and she did calf several days later.  She is extremely underweight, and we have doubts if she is really only 2 years old.  She looks like she's about 4.

She had been bred to a Herford.  The calf is colored like a Herford.  We named him Vindicator.  Dad also bought 4 calves from a dairy in Yakima.  I named them Joker, Poker, and Pinochle.  Poker couldn't poop, and died.  The others are doing fine though, and are sucking her well.

The cow (she isn't named yet.  Sometimes it's "Bossy", or "Betsy", or "Grandma")

Vindicator

We also gave Mittens and Mother Cat away to a good home.  Frisky has disappeared, our he would be gone too.