a few days ago I helped deliver a litter of american bull puppies....She Had given birth to 4 pups..one was 3 times the size of all the others, it looked as if she gave birth to a month old pup, and after the very lengthly labor to deliver him, he did very well almost growing even bigger befor our eyes...but this morning at only 6 days old he suddenly looked real sick, eyes swollen and looked very thin, when i went touch his eyes with a warm cloth, one of them burst open and a pussy substance came out.befor I could get him to the vet, within an hour of that i noticed puss also from his nose and mouth....he was doing so well and just overnight he lost weight and developed the swelling....I have heard of puppy shingles but I thought it happened in older pups I had never heard of it in one so young...the Vet here is very confused and didnt offer much input on what was wrong and we had to put him down not having any other choice. one other pup was born with a bad cleft pallat and was also put down...the remaining 2 pups are doing great. I am at a loss to know what happened...The mother was a resue dog at the begining of her pregnancy...So we dont know much about the breeding...please help with any answers you can give....

If she was already pregnant when rescued, she could well have been at risk of all sorts of infection - Chlamydia comes to mind for a start.   Your vet should be able to diagnose and prescribe.

I take it she will be spayed after the puppies are weaned?   I would certainly hope so!

Margot

That sounds ominous that he was so much bigger than the other puppies. Huge puppies like that rarely seem to survive for some reason. I don't know about american ones, but english bulldogs (and other breeds) can have 'water puppies' also known as 'walrus puppies' which are born swollen with fluid. He could have just had something congenitally wrong with him, or an infection of some sort either contracted before or after birth... there's many reasons. Young puppies can appear lively and healthy one minure and go downhill and die in no time at all. Even with a postmortem you may never get to the bottom of it - it just happens.

Good luck with the remaining two.

Very sad to hear this happened.   Information on 'Walrus' pups and associated problems here, scroll to the bottom of the page to find it.

http://bulldogsworld1.homestead.com/Spinal_Nerve_conditions.html

Hope this helps some

Good luck with the rest of the litter

Regards
Dill