I have a litter of 5 almost 6 week old pups, they were born at 63 days after the first mating, birth was pretty smooth and mum has been brilliant from the beginning. However, I am now worried about one little girl.
There have been some small issues with her but nothing that couldn’t be managed - mum bit her cord too close when she was born and it took a while to stop the bleeding and then at a week old I found her floppy, drooling and barely breathing. Emergency vet told me it was fading puppy and basically make her comfortable to die or bring her in to be put to sleep. I wasn’t happy with this as she was one of the larger pups and had otherwise been healthy, so I used an aspirator to clear her airways and gave her life drops... 10 mins later she was back to normal, breathing normal, crawling around and back to feeding off mum. Very glad I didn’t listen to the vet.
Up to around 2 weeks ago she has been fine and was always one of the larger puppies, however over the past couple of weeks it has become very noticeable that the other pups have overtaken her both in size and other development. She is now significantly smaller than all the others, even though she has been eating, drinking and going to the toilet just as well as all the others. Also, where the others will all run around and play together, she will come out of the pen to eat but will then take herself back to her bed and curl up. I’ve thought maybe she’s just more timid than the others and maybe I’m only worrying because she’s small but today I came home from the school run to find she was crawling and seemed unable to use her legs to stand/walk. I took her to the water bowl and she drank quite a bit, but was still unable to stand and when I brought the food out she wouldn’t eat, even when I offered it to her from my hand. Her tummy feels hard and round, which does not feel like any of the other pups when I compare. I thought maybe constipation but as I’ve said, she’s been eating and drinking normal and going to the toilet normally too. I ran some warm water and held her back end under it and she did open her bowels but tummy still rock hard and although she has managed to stand, it’s like she can’t walk and will just stay wherever I place her. I think now with the obvious size difference, her inability or reluctance to play and interact like the others are doing and now her refusal to eat, hard tummy and seemingly inability to walk, there is something wrong. I have an appointment with the vet later today but does anybody have any ideas what could be going on? I’ve learnt from experience and from following these forums over the past few months, that vets don’t always get it right so I want to be armed with information before I accept what the vet might tell me as gospel (worried that I’ll be told she needs to be put to sleep when this might not be the case).
Any information greatly appreciated!
Jade

I think you need to wait for your vet's opinion.  Just one situation come to mind - have you wormed the puppies yet .... not that carrying worms would, I don't think? affect the ability to stand up etc.   But it would produce hard 'bloated looking' tummies.

Hopefully your vet will be able to shed some light on what's going on.   Worrying indeed.

Sadly, sometimes there are things wrong with pups that don't develop like the rest of the litter.  I think this is one for the vet because it's going to require more diagnostic tools than an internet forum has - it could be any number of things, some not serious at all, some very serious.

Hi, yep pups have been wormed at 2 and 4 weeks. Due the next lot this weekend. It’s looking like liver shunt, blood results came back and they’re not great at all. Going to change her diet ASAP and hopefully that will get her strong enough for any treatment. Luckily an experienced breeder I know put me in touch with someone who’s been in this situation and her dog is now 4 so all isn’t lost!

> It’s looking like liver shunt,

Oh dear - sad, but don't give up hope.