16 May 2010

We had rather a traumatic day yesterday. Daisy started staggering round, her legs went very weak and she could hardly stand up, then she collapsed and was almost unconscious. She had been fine at lunchtime but a couple of hours later was seriously ill. I immediately grabbed her and dashed off to the vets which is thankfully only 10 minutes away.

The vet took her in to do blood tests and put her on a drip. I had to leave her there to come home to look after the puppies. I already had substitute milk and a bottle just in case of emergencies, but I have never needed to use it. The puppies soon woke up wanting feeding but they were not too impressed to find me and a bottle instead of their mum. I did manage to get them to take some milk by dripping it into their mouths with a syringe, but they were really not keen on it at all.

The vet called about 2 hours later to say that Daisy had a calcium deficiency. she was making so much milk for the puppies who are getting so big now that her body just ran out. She is not a big eater and I am struggling to get her to eat enough food to feed the puppies as well as herself. The puppies are getting fatter and fatter while Daisy seems to be getting thinner by the day.

She was given calcium in a drip and miraculously in just a couple more hours she was bouncing about, ready to come home. You would never have known there had been anything wrong with her. The puppies were pleased to see her and imediately latched on for a good feed. Daisy has some calcium tablets to take each day. I will start trying to wean the puppies soon as I think Daisy will struggle to feed them all as they get bigger.
At the moment they are quite contented all snuggled up in a big pile.















And Daisy now fully recovered takes a few minutes off to play with some babies of a different kind.