Hi
I have one very small weak pup. Is feeding from mum but still seems a little dehydrated. I keep putting her back to feed when the others are sleeping, but is there anything else I should be doing for her?? She is such a sweetie I don't want to lose her.
Thanks
Kelly

Make sure that she's warm and give her electrolytes, with an eye dropper, just one/two ml every half an hour. Nutridrops, one drop, twice, half hour apart, then as per bottle.

I learnt a lesson the hard way many years ago. My bitch had a litter in June and the weather turned into a heatwave and I had two day old pups sweating, never seen it before. With eleven pups this was a big problem I had to bath the pups to cool them down and keep them fresh. Unfortunately two pups got dehydrated, one died but giving the other Lectade in a dropper every two hours, the vet reassured me she would be fine. Well she made it and at eight weeks old off she went to her new home. As far as I knew everything was fine. I contacted the owners in the usual way for the first few weeks making sure there were no problems

Two years later the dog died from kidney failure. She had had two years of repeated cystitus, the damage had obviously been done in those first few days of life. I wish I had gone with my gut instinct.

If the puppy is weak and dehydrated think very carefully.

Hi
She is suckling well at the moment, while the piggies are out of the way!! She is still very active and wriggles across the whelping bed to find mum or the hotwater bottles :D My gut feeling is that she will be fine as long as she has some help!! And thats what I will do. She seems content when suckling so I think I will wait and see about bottle feeding. She put's up a fight at the dinnertable and I think this has worn her out, she arrived after a gap of about 5 hours at whelping time so maybe this has also knocked her for six.
Thanks For the advice
Kelly

Hi Hearn, go with your gut feeling then :)
After all, if you never give them the chance by helping out, you`ll never know.
Christine, Spain.

One of my pups was like this - once latched onto mum she was fine, but she had a fight getting on which wore her out - so she didn't suck for long, she was the most active of the three - first one to do everything, she was ok for a week, then lost weight - so we supplemented her with the evap milk/water mix, worked a treat. I'm sure she will be fine, just follow your instincts.

Nikki xx

Hi,
The little girl is doing great. She is feeding for longer now and we are still putting her on when the others are asleep. I think she is going to be fine.
Thanks for all the advice and support
Kelly

Hi
Good news so far.... The little girl is doing great. She is putting on weight daily and is a real sweetie. I can't sit down for more than 10 minutes though because mummy keeps squashing all of them. And could someone please remind me what sleep is!! :D :D
Love
Kelly